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Honorable Mentions

Players given the title of Honorable Mention were recognized by the panel as major threats to tournaments this season that just didn’t quite make the rankings.

Z0nyx, Bowman, Don’t Swear, Destroyer of Worlds, Zluchs

“I might as well be a chicken nugget”

Rounding out this year’s PR is Defileus. Being his premiere appearance on the rankings he secured his rank by coming out of the gates swinging, taking 9th place at the ROCS finals. He impressed with wins over Slap and Kalamahri making for quite the outstanding bracket run.

The laid back and kind Scotsman is deeply involved with the UK-Rivals scene, both running the UK discord and hosting UK weeklys. While not being able to play for large parts of 2019, he returned to competition by playing in most of the ROCS events leading up to RCS season 5. He slowly got back into the groove of things, ironed out his gameplay and this year he was finally able to show off his uniquely defensive playstyle. While especially fond of bair and neutral special, he’s also adept at using side special for tricky burst movement to catch people off guard.

We hope that moving forward Defileus is able to further develop as a player and stay active. Seeing how quickly he was able to improve in last year’s off season we expect him to do even better moving forward.

“Let’s gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”

A newcomer to the European PR, J.E.V.B. manages to reach 19th place this season. He improved significantly over his two and a half years of playing rivals and has made quite the name for himself as somewhat of a hidden boss. His season culminated in taking down Transco in the RCS water bracket and snatching himself a 7th place.

J.E.V.B’s presence in the community should not be understated. He’s one of the nicest and most positive people in the European rivals scene. Consistently grinding and exploring obscure techniques, he has also developed one of the most unorthodox Elli playstyles out there.

Considering how much J.E.V.B has improved over the course of the last two and a half years we hope to see him continue improving at a similar rate and rise through the ranks even further.

“Lame truck – Vinny 29-05-2020”

Returning to the PR for the nth time is veteran player FullMetal. His season started with a competent run at the ROCS finals, finishing at 9th.

The definitive high point for Vinny this season was, however, his run in the RCS Earth bracket In which he picked up a win over Hermoise and finished in 7th place.

Fullmetal somehow manages to be a dunkmaster in a game that has neither hoops nor balls. He is so consistent at it that his aggressive playstyle seems almost defined by his ability to sniff out every occurrence of bad DI at the end of a combo. Helped by his many years of experience, Vinny is able to strike fear into even the most seasoned players’ hearts.

While FullMetals placement may not be as high as last season, history tells us that he will continue to place high and down special spike his way onto the next PR.

“Get geshmixed”

After years of high level play, Fat makes his first appearance on the European Power Rankings. His biggest hurdle has always been showing what he can do under the pressure of a tournament set. This season he didn’t let the nerves hold him back and earned consistent high placings in the RCS brackets, peaking with a 9th place finish at RCS Air.

Fat plays a fast, technical Forsburn that emphasizes good movement and quick combo conversions. Instead of hiding behind smoke, Fat will keep the screen clear so you can see just how lost you are fighting him. Even if you manage to survive one of his deadly combos, there’s no time to rest. Fat will not hesitate to chase you down as deep as he needs to go to make sure your stock is gone.

We hope Fat continues showing Europe what he’s made of in future RCS seasons. He’s been making the switch from Forsburn to Ranno while retaining his strong and dangerous playstyle. It’s going to be exciting seeing what new heights his frog will leap to when the next RCS season starts.

“Roses are red, violets are blue. My upstrong is bigger than you, but yet you still howl more than I do. ‘A man of many names'”

Hootsman aka Rossydragondreamboat aka Captain Caveman aka Mr.Handsome aka Mauwstein (Among other pseudonyms) makes his PR debut as Europe’s first and only power ranked Sylvanos main. While his tournament placings were somewhat inconsistent, he had an amazing run at the RCS Air event, where he beat both Hukon and Fireicey in back to back sets to finish in 9th place.

Hootsman’s most noticeable trait as a Rivals player is his deeply rooted faith in the often underestimated character Sylvanos. This fascination with the tree dog has led him to argue many times about the strength of his character. Not one to talk hot air, he has shown several times how strong Sylvanos can be. With the help of technical and tricky setups he’s able to throw most players for a loop. By constantly changing up his playstyle between hyper aggression and strong defense he becomes hard to predict.

Being the enigma he is when it comes to tournament play it’s hard to say with confidence what the next season will bring for the prolific Sylvanos main. Although given his peaks this year we expect nothing short of greatness.

“Did you know that only 30% of my youtube viewers are actually subscribed?”

CookieSmack, Ostrich, WOODDS, Hukon. It may surprise you to learn that a single man is behind each of these legendary players. Over the course of the season Hukon took on a new identity each month. With every reimagining of this classic top player came a new main as well. He’s one of two players on this ranking that stuck to the elemental theme through the whole season. Undoubtedly a risky move, but Hukon pulled it off. He made it to top 32 of every event after having switched his main character less than a month in advance. He wrapped up the season with a top 8 finish in the finals, after going back to his trusty Orcane.

Competition was not the only thing on Hukons mind this year. Despite learning a new character every month he found the time to put out multiple combo videos. His most successful work was his magnificent rendition of the Season 5 PR. There’s no telling what Hukon will do next season. Which characters will come out? What masterpieces will he publish? How many Twitter followers will he lose? Only time will tell.

“Jox sucks”

A returning name on the season 5 PR is the veteran Orcane player Slap. Making a significant improvement in both placement and skill compared to season 3, Slap is this PR’s highest ranking Orcane. Placing 9th in both the RCS Finals and Water event he bagged wins over Fullmetal, Bait and Jimbenator.

The ever mellow Orcane specialist is a true fighting game connoisseur. Playing everything he can get his hands on, he isn’t afraid to step out of his comfort zone when it comes to the genre. This adaptability shows in his play, always trying to sniff out bad approach habits and punishing them viciously with his well thought out punish game. Coupled with his unusually calm demeanor when it comes to stressful situations he makes for a scary opponent under any circumstance.

Given his expertise in everything fighting game related we don’t see Slap falling off any time soon. With offline events returning we hope to see him strive to improve even further and push his incredibly solid play to new heights.

“Shoutouts to Transco”

Dima had an impressive performance this year. In both the Fire and Earth events he gets wins on Transco, Slimepuffen and Slap, while only getting significantly upset once. This nets him 13th place on this season’s PR.

“You should all try the critically acclaimed MMORPG FFXIVs free trial, where new players can journey through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for FREE with no restriction on game time.”

An old school player returning to the PR this year is Slimepuffen. Though he officially retired last year, he still consistently performed well throughout the entire season. Hitting top 8 twice and picking up wins over the likes of OliveOily and Kalamahri on the way.

Former EU-cord Admin, avid FFXIV enjoyer, and top level player for many years, Slime has been a core part of both the European and American scene. While technically retired, he decided to enter all but one bracket anyway. When asked for a reason, Slime eloquently answered with “Skins lol”. On top of this, the Olympia obsessed swede is a regular at Workshop events and helps balance a fair amount of WS characters. Despite no longer frequenting singles and leaving his spot as EUcord admin, Slime is still actively helping parts of the community.

For a retired player, his performance this year has been incredible. While his interest in the current base cast of rivals has declined, Slime has expressed interest in returning to singles with the release of Olympia later this year, we hope to see him come back to serious competition soon.

“Totsugeki”

Hermoise returns to the power ranking, dropping one spot from last year’s 10th place. Due to him enrolling in university and a pandemic getting between him and local tournaments, the Ori main decided to take a step back and enjoy the game more casually. Contrary to his thoughts on competing online, he still decided to enter four of this season’s online majors (mostly to complete his collection of champion skins) and showed strong performances throughout. Most notably his 3rd place in RCS Fire with an upset vs Alkihamzie, as well as his 2-0 record on Slimepuffen.

University was not the only thing keeping Herm “Hummus Humtup” oise busy, he continues to help new European players get into the game with his work as both a moderator and a TO of Novice Rivals. He even revamped the entire server to accommodate the influx of players over the year, all while terrorizing the mid-level players in exhibition with his gruesome roll reads. Furthermore, the Scottish player took an interest in film and drama, showing off his skills as an actor and writer in his drama “Read Some Rolls”, documenting the terror he puts people through.

While his Ori stays as flashy as ever and inarguably cements itself as a Top 2 Ori within Europe, he’s been preparing a potential new main. With locals slowly returning, we’re curious to see what his Ori, Sein and Maypul will have in store for us and if he’ll manage to return to the Top 10 in the coming year.

“[̢̀͘͢͢͞͞͞R̵̴̵̨̛͜͢͞e̵̢̨͘͠͝͏̴d̴̨̡̧̀̕͜͢a҉̸̶̢̨̡́͟ć̵̷̢̀͜͢͢t̴́̀̀͘̕̕͡è̸̸̡͜͟͝͡d̢̢̛́̕͘͜͝]͏҉̷̸̵̡̢̧”

Bait has been casually entering tournaments for a long time. This season he seems to have started taking competing more seriously. We saw him go from getting an odd win here and there to consistently taking out top 10 players. His highest placing this season was in RCS Fire where he made a run all the way to 5th place, taking out 3 of our other top 10 players on the way there.

Bait is one of many Wrastor mains to pick up Kragg as a secondary. It was juggling these two characters that enabled him to put on such strong performances throughout the season. No matter which of his characters he’s playing, he’ll always come right at you with unrestrained aggression. He forces a high pace in the match by never giving you, or himself, any time to sit back and think about the next move. You always have to be ready for whatever is coming at you next. If Bait catches you unprepared, you’re getting a free one-way ticket to the blastzone.

After the season ended, Bait moved back to China. Europe is safe from his relentless attacks for now, but we’re sure that when he gets back he’ll be ready to tear through the competition once more. For now we’ll wait for his return and watch him show off his ability in the Asian Rivals of Aether scene.

“Cinnamon finnamon – All frimmanon feminine – All venom and hawk venom is cinnamon”

Sliding onto the PR for the first time is Sportsfreund, giving us an incredible showing throughout the months with her extremely potent Etalus gameplay. She started off the season relatively weakly with a ninth place finish in RCS Fire, but rapidly improved and managed to place in the top 6 of every subsequent tournament. To cement her meteoric rise, she has picked up wins on large portions of the PR, particularly notable is her 2-0 record over Shayd.

Being a goofball through and through, the young Maya has made quite the name for herself in the community. Making friends with pretty much anyone she meets and usually having something nice to say about everybody, she’s a joy to be around. Her unusually relaxed demeanor towards the game makes her especially easy to talk about anything Rivals related.

On the other hand, her gameplay is vicious, technical and aggressive. Sports has a good general understanding of the engine, and combined with her affection for learning niche tech, it has allowed her to round out her gameplay and compensate for her character’s weaknesses in several areas. With an incredible punish game to boot, she’s able to snowball most people into oblivion without much trouble.

As the grinder she is, we don’t see her faltering anytime in the near future either. Despite her making the switch to a new character we expect her to keep doing well in the coming year.

“Shoutouts to ScarCheek for making all of this possible”

If you had only seen his 17th place finish at the ROCS Finals you might be surprised to see him this high on the PR. Nonetheless, newcomer and rising star Kalamahri upped his game significantly throughout the season. Never placing below 9th again, and even gaining a 3rd place finish at RCS Earth, taking down titans like Transco, Jimbenator and Shayd on the way.

As a strong believer in Ori’s potential, he continuously keeps an eye out for and practices new tech he thinks could strengthen his gameplay. A clear result of this is his clean punish and combo game, rarely failing to convert stray hits into deadly stage carries and, with his proficiency in using flame reverse back air, manages to take stocks off his opponents earlier and more consistently than any other Ori main in Europe. Kalamahri’s technical ability is not the only impressive part of his gameplay, due to his seemingly unlimited patience and understanding of positioning he also excels at controlling the pace of the game.

Having overshot his initial goal of making it to 10th place on this season’s ranking, Kala glides into his well deserved spot in 8th, all while finishing his studies as a software engineer. With a strong-looking Clairen pocket pick in the works, we hope to see him compete offline and continue to rise through the ranks in the next RCS season.

“My only goal in Rivals is to make my opponent say “WTH is he doing?” moments before losing a stock”

Jim takes 7th place home once again for this year’s PR. The deeply dedicated Kragg main makes top 8 five times this season and on his many deep bracket runs he picks up wins over strong players like Bait, Shayd and OliveOily.

Jimbenator first joined the community back in early 2018. Bouncing between characters at first, he ended up sticking with kragg. A true believer in the bug, Jim would always push to improve his gameplay in peculiar ways. Be it adding a new rock setup, optimizing punishes off of stray hits or grinding out even the worst matchups, he’d do anything to innovate and push the Kragg meta forwards.

He was however not only known for his tournament prowess or stylish play. Jim was simply a very approachable personality. Frequently discussing game theory within EU-cord, roping new people into the game and making sure newcomers felt welcome. It is hard to ignore Jim’s passion for the game and the community that surrounded it.

Unfortunately, Jim recently passed away. It hit the community hard and it’s a huge loss for everyone involved. Nevertheless, let’s try to remember what Jim did for the community, both as a player and as a personality. We wish his friends and loved ones all the best.

“Shayd > Z0nyx”

Shayd has long been respected as the top Elliana in Europe. As soon as she was released he dedicated himself to mastering the character. While his skill in piloting the mech has been undeniable for years, he’s never made it onto the RCS rankings. Don’t be fooled into thinking that it was his ability to perform holding him back though. Simple inability to enter ranking events kept him under the radar until now, but this season that completely changed. As soon as he could consistently enter, without missing a single event, he claimed his position amongst the very top of Europe.

His Elliana shows great proficiency in many fields. One moment you’ll find yourself struggling to catch him as he slips away all while leaving a minefield of projectiles behind for you to defend against. The next, you’ll be wishing he was a little further away as his explosive punish game melts your stock in an instant.

His ingenious Elliana mechanics are a  force to be reckoned with, but getting past just that won’t be enough to take down the French mastermind. Shayd’s repertoire encompasses far more characters fit for battle. He’s unafraid of bringing out any of his well-trained secondaries in even the tensest of sets. His knack for switching to a different character with a wildly different style is impressive to say the least. Most players will not be ready to face Shayd, and when they think they are, he’ll immediately throw them for a loop.

“Huckons clip sucked”

Once again nestling herself comfortably into the top 5 this season is OliveOily. While not the biggest fan of online tournaments she had standout performances throughout the season. Most notable being her appearances in all but one top 8 and an incredible second place finish in the RCS earth event.

Quite a lot changed over the course of the season for the Wrastor aficionado. While she was able to perform well under the pressure of simultaneously TOing the majors she was playing in, she decided it was a bit much for her. This was also bundled with the fact that she became the owner of EUcord when Slime resigned. Oily may not have developed as much as a player during this season yet still got to show everyone her tournament consistency. Playing in less than favourable conditions and making top 5 on the PR all the same is no easy feat. Outside of rivals she has also gained a newfound interest in more traditional fighting games, dedicating a considerable amount of time to multiple titles in the Guilty Gear series.

With locals being on the horizon we expect Oily’s glorious return to serious competition. An incredibly dedicated theory crafter and grinder in any game she competes in, we hope to see her make a full comeback to rivals.

“Keep it a hunnid baby”

Alki has been tearing up brackets since early 2019 but surprisingly didn’t enter many on-season events that year. Showing that his offseason performance was not a fluke in the slightest, he started the season by placing 2nd in the ROCS finals. On his way there he picked up wins over Slime, Jimbenator and Japal. Similarly spectacular performances followed suit and he has become a household top 8 name in any bracket he enters.

Being sometimes a bit provocative and having a tremendous amount of confidence, Alki comes off as feisty. With the occasional technical problem on his end, his tournament runs can be a bit unpredictable.

Alki impresses with a unique hit and run playstyle, always on the move and trying to sniff out a whiff to punish. Not being afraid to approach either, he is hard to pin down even while playing a rather middling character in terms of raw speed.

“Shoutout to Smash Austria :)”

Making his way back onto this year’s PR as EU’s premier Clairen, Japal has experienced a large increase in both consistency and skill. Showing his excellent tournament consistency, he earned a top 4 placement in all 5 RCS tournaments he entered. In his most impressive performance this year, he double-eliminated Fireicey, last year’s number one, to win the RCS Water bracket. Keeping within the theme of never placing outside of top 4, his only losing head to heads are against his top 4 rivals.

A committed streamer, he usually broadcasts his bracket runs. This gives a lot of people insight into what a top player might be thinking about and how they react to devastating losses but also important wins. Coupled with a healthy temper, a fiery urge to improve and win, his streams are nothing short of thrilling.

The uniquely resolute and patient gameplay often lets him convert small pokes in neutral into huge combos and flashy edgeguards. At the same time he can make it seem impossible to get back to a favorable position.

Given this incredibly well thought-out gameplay and the hard work he has put in over the last two seasons, we predict that Japal will continue to dominate everyone outside of top 5 and improve his already clean gameplay even further.

“Playing neutral? More like playing yourself”

Transco casually claims the number two spot on the European PR for the fourth year in a row. He starts out the season with two phenomenal runs in the Fire and Air brackets respectively. While picking up numerous PR wins on the way to Grands, the truly insane wins are double eliminating Fireicey in the Fire major and Japal in the Air major. This makes him the only player on this year’s PR to have a winning record on both players.

The God king of EURivals himself barely needs an introduction at this point. Creative, technical and aggressive – pretty much everything you want out of a hype player. Transco has the uncanny ability to read everyone and everything. Given his reputation you’d imagine that he spends most of his waking hours playing Rivals. While he does occasionally play rivals outside of brackets, most of his free time seems to be spent on Path of Exile. On Top of this, the elk conqueror overslept the RCS finals event, behavior only describable as kingly.

While picking up the occasional bad loss to an Elli, Transco has shown the ability to adapt to anything thrown at him over the years. Given this, he will most likely keep making high-ranking appearances on PRs for as long as he desires to play competitively.

“PR is coming this summerᵗᵐ”

Fireicey makes his grand return as our number one player this season. By actually sticking to the theme of this year’s RCS season, he shows us how astoundingly adept he is at using various characters. Although this may have led to him being less dominant than last year, he still won half of the brackets and only placed outside of top 2 once.

Fi’s gameplay would be best described as precise. While he may not go much for flashy stuff and he rarely overextends on combos, the moment you’re in an even slightly bad position he strikes with an efficacy unrivaled by anyone in Europe. On top of this, Fireicey has proven to be one of the most consistent top level players in rivals history. Both in terms of execution and tournament play he excels at doing arduous things even under immense pressure. Spurred on by his desire to win he became the biggest grinder in Europe, couple this with an incredible mindset, and Fireicey truly is the ideal player one should strive to be.

Even while working a full time job and playing characters he is less experienced with, he retains the number one spot in europe. It’s hard to imagine someone could challenge his dominion anytime soon either.