Each year we look back on the previous competitive season and the players who influenced our scene by creating a Top 50 Players list. Season 5 (July 2020 – January 2021) was a particularly interesting season, with players forced to adapt to an entirely online circuit. Even with these new challenges the year featured record breaking events happening left and right. Our minimum attendance this season was a whopping 374, with four of our events counting over 450 players! The RCS Finals proved to be our largest event ever, with 608 unique entrants, 21 hours of streaming, and four events over a three day period.
We recognize that this year is indeed different in nature due to the complexities of online and the shorter season resulting from COVID uncertainty in early 2019. Less eligible events than Season 4 and online results made our rankings a bit more difficult than previous years, however we count ourselves lucky to have such a dedicated community. Competitors, Tournament Organizers, volunteers, commentators, and spectators fueled a Season 5 that changed and molded itself before our very eyes. The fluidity and willingness to overcome obstacles together made Season 5 one for the books. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.
Before we delve into the rankings this year, here’s an introduction on how the list was formed along with our events list and hidden bosses.
View more articles in the Season Five Online NA Rankings Series:
Player Qualifications
Two years ago during season 4 we saw events from the RCS circuit and grassroots community alike shape the Top 50 rankings. It was noted that, while it would have been nearly impossible to predict the massive success of non-RCS events, some transparency as to which events would be counted would be nice.
To address that issue in Season 5, we announced every event that would count towards the rankings at the start of the season. This method was ideal for players to enter events without fear of having unrelated performances affect their placements. However there were some events that popped up, such as Kingpin 4, that would have made great additions to the season. With this in mind, our next season could introduce applications for Tournament Organizers to include their event in rankings as their signups open, without being an official RCS event. This method would allow more fluidity to our season, while keeping players in the loop as events are announced.
For the Season 5 Online Rankings, we only considered players with 2 or more events from the list below to be eligible for the Rivals Top 50.
| Season 5 Ranking Events |
|---|
| ROCS Finals |
| RCS Fire |
| RCS Air |
| RCS Earth |
| RCS Water |
| RCS Finals |
Methodology
This year, we brought back the panel system from Seasons 3 and 4, ranking players based on a combination of their best wins/worst losses and their placements at eligible events. Disqualifications from losers bracket were considered as losses for the player that DQd, while not giving their opponent an artificial bump beyond their better placement. Finally, players who entered the minimum number of events (two) were scrutinized more heavily than others due to the lack of data to go off of. In the end, neither the considerations for DQs, nor the minimum event considerations affected player placements too heavily.
The age-old debate of offline or online was no longer a concern due to our exclusively online season. All events carried the same weight except for the RCS Finals, which was weighted heavier due to the high stakes and the fact that it was our grand finale. It is important to note that the ROCS Finals was originally meant to carry the same weight as a RCS Major when the potential for offline tournaments still existed, so it is considered to be equal to our Elemental Majors.
Once this ranking system was completed, a council made additional adjustments to the order based on head-to-head results, activity, and other data. This group consisted of players and Tournament Organizers from across the country in order to accurately represent the various regions of North America: Junior, Menace13, MSB, Renzo, SBS, and Sparx21. Protagify was brought in for a third party review once the list was completed.
Hidden Bosses
Players given the title of Hidden Boss were recognized by the panel as major threats to tournaments this season that just didn’t quite meet the requirements to be ranked.
