Season 8 Rankings: #50-41

By SBS — May 20, 2024

Welcome to the North American RCS Season 8 Top 50! Each year we look back on the previous competitive season and the players who influenced our scene by creating a Top 50 Players list. The rankings are created by a community panel that considers data from across the season to construct a comprehensive list that highlights our top players and their accomplishments.

View more articles in the Season Eight NA Rankings Series:

- Introduction & Methodology
- #50-41 (You are here.)
- #40-31
- #30-21
- #20-11
- #10-1

50. JustaRandomdud3

“Characters with broken Down B’s my beloved”

The Season 8 Top 50 is finally here, and JustaRandomdud3 makes his first appearance on our Power Rankings! Attending all four online events from his home in Mexico, JustaRandomdud3 secured wins over three different Top 50 competitors, while only dropping a single set to a non-ranked player. His consistency shined this season as a recent Rivals Amateur Series graduate, grinding and improving rapidly to win the hard fought and well earned fight for spot number 50.

49. Seelder

“Fair bash is true”

Making his first appearance on the Rivals Top 50 Rankings, Seelder is an up and coming Ori main from California with a love for the character and his local scene. Seelder’s improvement over the course of Season 8 can be clearly seen through placements, starting off with a 65th in RCS July and gradually earning better and better results until an impressive 25th at Genesis X.
Seelder claims a lot of his improvement and motivation comes from his favorite player, Ahntye, who hosts SoCal locals and is a treasure trove of Ori knowledge. Recognizing his trajectory should have competitors take notice for the future, and Seelder’s motivation is at an all-time high to carry over to Rivals 2 learn a new game from the beginning.

48. ThrownOrc

“That’s how I play Ma BIIIRD!!!”

A crowd favorite makes his hotly anticipated first ever Top 50! ThrownOrc has been on the cusp of a breakthrough for some time now leading into Season 8, where he kicked the grind into overdrive and attended every single RCS LAN and four different GRL events. ThrownOrc showed consistency at the big three; placing 33rd at Heat Wave 6, Riptide, and Genesis X with wins over the likes of Spyker, Farbanti, and ColbyJackC. Coming in at the 48 slot, his goal for the season seems to have been achieved; however, this will not stop Johnny from continuing the climb in both Rivals 1 and Rivals 2.
“I want to shoutout my Mom and Dad (MamaTORC and PapaTORC) and my Boss Shanager at HFCC for their constant support they’ve given me in my journey of Gaming. And shoutout to The TORC Nation for all the encouragement throughout the years.”

47. Subserial

“Misanthropists are cowards; love so hard it’s like sweet madness.”

Everyone’s favorite D6 main is back fro another Top 50 appearance! While he didn’t have any goals beyond spending time with friends met along his journey, Subserial attended four LAN events, making the Top cut at Riptide and Genesis X with wins over Omar and Ateozc while wielding his legendary D6 to select his character for every game. Looking forward, Subserial is naturally excited to play Fleet in Rivals 2 as she shares his affinity for dice and friendship.

46. CyberHex

The head T.O. of Rivals Recess is back on the Top 50 list after achieving some of her best results ever on the biggest stages in Rivals. CyberHex has been the head T.O. for amateur brackets in Rivals for the past 2 years, but also branches out into open brackets from time to time. Her event, Rivals Recess Major 3, was a key GRL online major for the community both in accessibility to events and quality. You may have also heard of her followup event recently, as Rivals Recess Major 4 continued to introduce high level Rivals brackets to the greater community after the RCS has concluded while simultaneously providing the largest Rivals 2 Beta weekend bracket that acted as a beacon in a sea of fantastic events over our first public playtest.
CyberHex has contributed to the Rivals community in a reliable and growth-focused way that continues to impress whenever she heads a project. Be sure to appreciate her hard work as her love of the community continues to shine.

45. Lucio

“If you rank me below 45 you’re racist.”

Lucio is our second player hailing from Mexico to break into the Top 50 in Season 8, making his first appearance through impressive online performances and a strong showing at our Genesis X finale. His swap from Ori to Zetterburn seems to have paid dividends as his only losses were to current and one former Top 50 level competitor, showing a constant push to improve and punch above his previous skill levels. Lucio was excited to meet online friends at Genesis X and Hurricane and looks forward to keeping Mexico on the map as he believes it is underrepresented and full of high level competition going into Rivals 2.

44. HealsGood

“Forsburn player (derogatory)”

Yet another new face to the Rivals Top 50, HealsGood is a new age Sylvanos main that pick up the game in April 2022 and has evolved into a threat to the new and old guard alike. His foray into fighting games was relatively recent, showing that he’s a bit of a natural, quickly getting ranked in Rivals 1, and placing 9th at the first ever public Rivals 2 bracket at Genesis X. HealsGood looks forward to starting from scratch and eventually pushing Sylvanos’ meta in Rivals 2 (whenever that may arrive).

43. Brunch

Coming in at 43 is another Sylvanos who has been no stranger to the Top 50 rankings. Brunch took a pretty laid back approach to competition this year, entering all four online brackets while focusing on fun and improving in other fighting games. He proved that previous skill tends to stick with an individual regardless of new hours, with strong wins over current and former Top 50 competitors and a stunning victory at Rivals Recess Major 3 over Top 10 mainstay, ZeeBee. Brunch is looking forward to improving at Rivals 2 and hopes that Sylvanos join the fray before too long.

42. Veil

“No dude”

Veil may have changed her tag between seasons, but she is just as deadly as ever as she swings in at number 42 in Season 8. This season presented new opportunities for Veil as she took on greater responsibilities as a T.O. and production assistant for Midwestern events such as Two Day War and Riptide 2023. She used this season and her newfound job to reconnect with the community and travel more than ever while still proving herself as a threat to top level talent, taking MSB and Wai to Game 5 scenarios at different events. If you want to keep up with Veil, be sure to follow her on X as she spends time as a streamer, content creator, and cosplayer outside of her bracket runs!

41. Ateozc

“Uhhhh……” – Patrick Star

Rounding out our first ten competitors today is the legendary Chicago T.O., Ateozc. Ateozc played both Absa and Olympia in Season 8 at a high level, making him a truly dangerous double threat, especially on his home turf where he was able to secure a win on Sparx21 on his way to 3rd at COST 2023. Ateozc looks forward to being more of a competitor than a T.O. in the future; however, you can still find him next week running yet another community bracket for Rivals of Aether at Combo Breaker.

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, News | Comments: 1

Season 8 RCS Top 50 – Introduction

By SBS — May 20, 2024

At the end of each season we look back on the previous competitive year, and the players who influenced our scene, by creating a Top 50 Players list to honor and celebrate our greatest competitors.

Season 8 brought an exciting return of the community-ran Grassroots League (GRL). Both the RCS and the GRL circuits held their own unique ranking systems that rewarded players with vouchers to different events. The RCS brought the point leader and one player that had never been to Genesis to the RCS Finals at Genesis X, while the GRL circuit gave smaller vouchers to the highest performing players to attend the next event in the circuit before eventually inviting eight player to the Grassroots League Invitational after the Top 50 Ranking period concluded.

The season featured just one tier of RCS events but different tiers of GRL events. Only specific GRL events counted for Rankings as listed below in the article, while every RCS event qualified. Players were required to attend a minimum of four qualifying events, with at least two of them being part of the RCS.

RCS Season 8 was an exciting and bitter-sweet period for the community, and for our team here at Aether Studios. We made the announcement that the RCS would go on hiatus after Genesis X in order to focus on the final stretch of development on our sequel, Rivals 2. This news wasn’t easy to share, but we know that as long as players are willing to pick up a controller the game will still be there. The GRL and associated community events throughout the season were nothing short of inspiring for us to see, while the RCS brought some of the most hype moments in the history of the game. Season 8 brought us story-lines from across the community, while introducing the first ever razor-thin race for Rank 1 between not two, but three different players.

Everyone at Aether Studios would like to give a massive thank you to our tireless community leaders, our rockstar competitors, and every single person that made this season possible through competition, viewership, donations, or otherwise. We would not be here without you.

View more articles in the Season Eight NA Rankings Series:

- Introduction (You are here.)
- #50-41
- #40-31
- #30-21
- #20-11
- #10-1

As usual, events must meet a certain threshold of competition, attendance, and region diversity to count towards Top 50. In RCS Season 8 we ran seven separate RCS events that were guaranteed to count for rankings, while the greater community put together eleven “Showcase” events of their own as a part of Grassroots League (GRL) and one final event after the conclusion of GRL in December.

Season 8 RCS Ranking Events
RCS July
Hitfall 2
Riptide 2023
The Big House 10
Heat Wave 6
RCS December
Genesis X

Season 8 GRL & Community Ranking Events
Major Upset
Rivals Recess Major 3
GoTE4TheKids8
COST 2023
CREST 2
Get On My Level 2023
Super Sunnyshore
The Reef
Two Day War
Hurricane
TAPS 6
Santa Paws

Player Qualifications

Our goal for Season 8 was to keep the number of required events higher to match the community events that would count for the rankings this year. It was decided that four events would be required to qualify with at least two of them being RCS tournaments. These guidelines were strict, but the community once again rose to the task to bring their own events to the table, providing ten additional LAN and 2 additional online events to our Top 50 standards.

Methodology

This year we brought back the well established panel system from Seasons 3 – 7. Players were ranked based on each of their eligible events, including consideration for their wins and losses to land them at their results. Disqualifications from the losers bracket were considered as losses for the player that DQd, while not giving their opponent an artificial bump beyond their better placement.

Events carried the same weight potential between online and offline except for the RCS Finals, which was weighted heavier due to the high stakes and the fact that it was our grand finale. While the overall weight of the RCS events had the potential to be the same, it was clear that some events were strictly more competitively stacked than others and when considering two players of near identical skill, offline events would edge out online events. In addition, the community events landed in tiers of their own. The weight of events in order were largely used as tiebreakers when considering two players of similar skill and were not a major consideration other than if they were the Finals, RCS, or Community. The weight of events in order are as follows: Genesis X, Riptide 2023, Heat Wave 6, Hitfall2, The Big House 11, RCS July, RCS December, GoTE8/GOML 2023/TAPS 6, Super Sunnyshore/Major Upset/Two Day War, Rivals Recess Major 3/The Reef/Santa Paws/Hurricane/COST 2023/CREST 2. While events are considered in different weights, this was only a partial deciding factor. In general, the council favored consistency among events above individual peaks.

Once this ranking system was completed, the panel made additional adjustments to the order based on head-to-head results 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: CyberHex, Jack Ryan, MSB, Nbad, Protagify, SBS, and Sparx21. Additional data was provided by Menace13, who had no input regarding final placements of the Top 50.

We’d like to thank all of our panelists for dedicating their time to putting this together for the community, as well as KELLZ for our brand new Season 8 player cards.

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. Each player listed placed Top 8 at a RCS event or Top 12 at the RCS Finals.

Hakis, Liam, Seggo, Starbos, Tapscott.

Categories: Announcement, Community, Esports, News | Comments: 0

Rivals of Aether Bugfix Patch 2.1.7.4

By SBS — April 24, 2024

We’re back with a bugfix full of bug squashing and a few QoL changes for Hodan. This is a smaller patch leading up to our potential final patch with more balance changes and a Switch update in the next few months!

Bug Fix: Fixed custom color skins applying to Story Mode due to some skins causing issues in gameplay.
Bug Fix: The Rollback Settings button is now unclickable while readied up.
Bug Fix: Fixed various skins displaying a Santa hat for 1 frame when hit.

Bug Fix: Landing during Neutral Air now gives resources back. This should only affect cases where he lands on a Kragg pillar that breaks while Wrastor still in landing lag.

Bug Fix: Fixed a replay bug that would show Forsburn losing a stock on the bottom tracker if clone died in a blastzone.

Bug Fix: Fixed multiple instances of teammate projectiles being deleted in the Down Special plasma field. (Mollo bombs, Pomme field, Orcane bubbles).
Bug Fix: Fixed being able to counter a Mollo bomb that wouldn’t hit Clairen normally.

Bug Fix: Parrying a petal wave over a flower now properly removes the grass around the flower.

Mollo had a lot of bugs related to his bombs still rattling around prior to this patch that we were able to pinpoint thanks to a wide net of community feedback.

Bug Fix: Bombs hitting an opponent the same moment they are parried will now apply knockback.
Bug Fix: Parrying a bashed bomb now sends it at the Ori that bashed it.
Bug Fix: Landing out of Tumble no longer sets off primed bombs.
Bug Fix: Getting hit by a 0 hitstun move such as Ori Neutral Special no longer detonates primed bombs.
Bug Fix: Kragg hitting a bomb with Forward Special now only gives him the article jump cancel window.
Bug Fix: Hitting a bomb downwards through a platform now always sends it through the platform.
Bug Fix: Bombs clipping into the stage the frame they’re thrown no longer teleport to the other side of the stage.
Bug Fix: Fixed bashed firecrackers only hitting Mollo once.
Bug Fix: Fixed reverse-DI from flashbang only applying to grounded opponents.

Bug Fix: Fixed the splash hitbox of Charged Down Strong not triggering if the parry landed on the last frame.
Up Strong: The spike hitbox now buries opponents when they hit the ground. (Grounded hitbox still bounces them upwards.).
- A general consensus was that using Hodan up Strong on platforms (on stage) could be a bit detrimental since players could simply tech out. Given the massive size of the move, having the throw bury opponents gives Hodan a chance to follow up on his attack, while not making the move too powerful.
Bug Fix: Players grabbed by Up Strong can no longer walltech before the move throws them.
Down Special: Dodge cancelling now works at any point in hitpause.
Down Special: Slam hitboxes now have hit lockout for the rest of his recovery frames (24 frames).
Down Special: Slam hitboxes no longer make opponents immune to mud waves.
- These changes to Down Special should keep the odd double bury situations from previous patches out of the game, while fixing the side effect of getting hit, then freely moving through mudwaves across the stage.

Bug Fix: Fixed crystalizing appearing wrong in playtest.
Bug Fix: Crystalizing now must be moving downwards to break off the ground. This fixes a rare case where Kragg could avoid crystalizing by being inside a rock on that frame.
Bug Fix: Fixed aerial stall decay not being applied if cancelled in-field.
Bug Fix: Fixed being able to use Neutral Special during a parried gem’s break animation.
Bug Fix: Neutral Special projectile no longer has hitpause scaling.
Bug Fix: Gem now gets bashed properly.
Bug Fix: Fixed being unable to turn around when cancelling the windup of Down Special.

Bug Fix: Bombs now bounce off of Vince.

Categories: Esports, News, Patch notes | Comments: 2

The People of Rivals of Aether: Europe – hok0ri

By SBS — March 28, 2024

This article is part of a community-made interview series featuring some of the top players and volunteers behind the grassroots European scene.

Good morning! to close off these interviews, I thought I’d answer the questions myself as well!

View the other interviews from this series:

Who are you?

I am hok0ri, a commentator, small-time graphic maker, Shovel Knight main from the UK and someone who is very passionate about this game and its community.

When did you first join the community?

Well, I first played the game in 2020 on Xbox, I was first introduced to Rivals the same way many may have been, through Alpharad, the videos that really stick out in my memory were some of his alpha vids, his video from when Abyss mode was being added and specifically his videos on Shovel Knight being added.
A year later, in June I picked the game up on steam and decided to foolishly enter that seasons RCS Finals, a week after picking the game up, since then I have spent the past two years being as active as I could be in the community, entering our our amateur brackets, crew battles, ft5 exhibitions and even got the chance to meet the friends I made in locals.

What has been your best/favourite moment with Rivals?

It’s a close tie between Rivals Odyssey Winter 2022 and Spring 2023, it was my first time leaving the UK on my own accord, and while both trips had hiccups when it came to travel, they both gave me some of my fondest memories, whether it was competing against people I had only met online, or being able to commentate two amazing tourneys live. Both events ended with a group of us taking photos together and going out for dinner. though if I had to pick just one moment it would have been commentating Grand Finals of Odyssey Spring, OliveOily vs TheDripCollector, both of their runs were fantastic, ending with an unforgettable final set, being able to commentate that with MidoMidori and hear everyone else reacting was such a surreal experience.

How would you describe your playstyle in Rivals?

Goofy. I just play in a way that I find fun, while I have fundamental and technical knowledge of the game, my application of said knowledge isn’t the best, Shovel Knight was always gonna be my main, because their moveset is perfect for my Rivals mentality.

What are you looking forward to most in Rivals 2?

Seeing how this community adapts to all the additions and changes, seeing new champions rise and how they master the game. Also seeing more of the roster in 3D and their costumes.

Any closing statements?

I am truly lucky to be a part of this community. It’s unreal how much a platform fighting game has affected my life. I have met some of the best people I know and made lifelong friendships because of this silly platform fighter
I want to thank Silva, our RAS TO for being a great friend recently, Frikinin for being such a ray of sunshine for the whole community, Readek for running basically everything behind the scenes for streams, my friends in Cobalt for being so kind for years, of course to all of you for the impact you have let this game have in the past 7 years and to everyone in the Rivals of Aether: Europe Discord server for welcoming me in and giving me opportunities to not only commentate, but to make something like these interviews happen.

I hope you all enjoyed reading through these, it was an honest pleasure to hear from these people and to get a better look into the community I love.
This was made possible thanks to everyone who chose to buy things from the RCS Championship Chest and put the proceeds to Europe’s Finals Pot.

Look forward to the community combo video and perhaps another surprise for our community… <3

Categories: Community, Esports, News | Comments: 0

The People of Rivals of Aether: Europe – Fireicey

By hok0ri — March 26, 2024

This article is part of a community-made interview series featuring some of the top players and volunteers behind the grassroots European scene.

We’re reaching the end here and what better of a way to finish this off than with the one and only Lion of the North, Fireicey!

View the other interviews from this series:

Who are you?

My name is Jakob, but most people know me as Fireicey, and both are for some reason frequently misspelt. I’m just a laid-back guy who gets overly invested in anything I enjoy, Rivals happened to be in a sweetspot of fun and convenient, so I’ve ended up sticking to it for a good while. Aside from Rivals I enjoy ball sports, most forms of fiction excluding live action (books, anime, games, manga), dried fruit and I try to live healthily, which my horrendous work shift schedule makes a lot more challenging.

When did you first join the community?

I think I started playing the game sometime around mid to late 2017 while I went to folkehøgskole (Folk high school), and got invited to the European Discord server not long after. However, I didn’t really start interacting with the community until the start of 2018, when I discovered a secret alcove in the attic of the library on campus where there was ethernet access. Finally armed with stable internet I started entering tournaments, and after a particularly good run where I got double eliminated by Transco for 2nd, he suggested I turn up to Destination Fight 4. I hadn’t really considered entering offline events before that moment, but with some help I was allowed to register after the deadline, and I ended up meeting many of the old staples of the European community for the first time, like Slimepuffen and OliveOily.

What has been your best/favourite moment with Rivals?

It would probably have to be winning Traction 5, since a lot of things came together for me at that event. It’s my biggest offline tournament win and my biggest tournament win without dropping a game. It was also my first tournament win with Transco in attendance and it clinched my first rank #1 on the PR.

How would you describe your playstyle in Rivals?

I’d say I’m a rather opportunistic player, who tends to be aggressive. By putting a lot of pressure on the opponent I can create openings and make it difficult for them to find space, and with a precise punish game I make it hard for them to fight back effectively. I’m a bit careless at times, so I can be prone to taking some unnecessary risks in neutral and offstage. Luckily, I have some of the best DI and slide offs in Rivals, which often makes up for it.

What are you looking forward to most in Rivals 2?

The main thing I’m looking forward to is the community being bigger. There are definitely advantages to the smaller community around a niche game like Rivals of Aether, but a larger community should lead to more opportunities to improve and compete, and more spectacle around the game with bigger tournaments and more creators.

Any closing statements?

Ahh, yes. I’m looking to buy a modded Xbox One model 1708 controller with a left stick snapback capacitor, mechanical ABXY buttons and a USB C port, or any of these mods. So to anyone who does Xbox One mods or knows someone who might be interested, please reach out to me on Discord.

Such words of wisdom, join me Thursday as we finish up The People of Rivals of Aether: Europe!

Categories: Community, Esports, News | Comments: 0

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