KDA is short for Kills / Deaths / Assists. It is one of the most familiar metrics in team games: it quickly shows how a player performed in a particular match.
How it is written and calculated
KDA is usually shown as three numbers: for example, "8/2/11" means 8 kills, 2 deaths, and 11 assists. An assist is help with a kill: the player dealt damage to an enemy who was finished off by a teammate, or otherwise took part in eliminating an opponent.
Besides the three-number format, KDA is often turned into a single ratio. The most common formula is:
(kills + assists) ÷ deaths
For the example above, that is (8 + 11) ÷ 2 = 9.5. If a player has not died even once, you can't divide by zero, so in such cases deaths are conventionally counted as one, or the result is written as "Perfect KDA". Formulas in different games and on different stats sites can vary, so numbers from different sources should be compared with caution.
Where it is used
The term comes from MOBA games such as Dota 2 and League of Legends, where the tally of kills, deaths, and assists is displayed right on the screen and in the match scoreboard. In shooters such as CS2, people more often talk about K/D (the ratio of kills to deaths) and look at assists separately, but the community still uses the word "KDA" for them too, as a general term for personal stats.
Why you shouldn't rely on it blindly
KDA shows what a player did, but not why or at what cost to the team. A few typical situations:
- A player with an excellent KDA may have stayed in the back the whole time and picked up other people's kills without creating space.
- A player with a mediocre KDA may have been the first to enter a risky position, relayed information, and traded themselves so that teammates could gain an advantage.
- A support (a support role) by definition often has a low number of kills, and their contribution — vision, control, saving allies — is barely reflected in KDA.
That is why, in the professional scene, individual KDA is considered a supplementary metric. Analysts and coaches look at more contextual metrics: contribution to map objectives, influence on the outcome of rounds and fights, and adherence to role. A good player sometimes deliberately sacrifices their own stats for the sake of the team's victory.
Colloquial use
In chats and comments, the word has become both a joke and an assessment. "His KDA is 0/10" is a jibe at a bad match; "feeding" means dying often, either on purpose or through inexperience, and boosting the enemy's score. "Playing for KDA" is said of those who protect their stats by avoiding risk, even when the team needs an active move.
The final number honestly answers the question "how many times did the player kill, assist, and die," but not the question "did they benefit the team" — and it is exactly this difference that separates a conversation about statistics from a conversation about the game.