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 6 (September 2021 – April 2022) was an exciting return to form, with our first offline Majors since COVID in 2020 sharing the spotlight with four unique online events.
Our first event back, Riptide, shattered records in both offline attendance and in registration speed – capping our 256 player Rivals singles event just hours after it was announced! Meanwhile online events let players all across the country get involved, with new competitors and old vets alike. The RCS Finals at Genesis 8 saw a delay from its initial January date due to COVID concerns before finding a new home in April and becoming our largest in-person finals to date.
The power rankings this year are a unique case from previous seasons due to the balance of online and offline events in a truly hybrid season. Our adaptation of mixing four online events and three offline events during the post-vaccine period of the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped Season 6 into a truly one-of-a-kind experience. Our wonderful community full of competitors, tournament organizers, volunteers, commentators, and spectators have made Season 6 an incredible ride. Thank you to everyone that has been a part of such a beautiful and complicated era of Rivals.
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 Six NA Rankings Series:
Player Qualifications
Our goal for Season 6 initially was to require a minimum of three events in order to be ranked on this year’s Top 50. Given the difficulty of accurately placing players with only two events under their belts, and the variety of available online events, this seemed like the best option. We announced every event that would count towards the rankings at the start of the season, but an unexpected delay to our Finals at Genesis 8 threw a wrench into things.
After some deliberation, it was decided that players who would miss our Finals due to the date change should not miss out on their opportunity to be ranked. The decision was made to lower our required events to two, since players could have been counting on their ability to attend Genesis 8 as their last event.
For the Season 6 RCS Rankings, we only considered players with two or more events from the list below to be eligible for the Rivals Top 50.
| Season 6 Ranking Events |
|---|
| Riptide |
| RCS Hot Springs |
| Heat Wave 4 |
| RCS Fireworks |
| RCS Melody |
| RCS Crystal |
| Genesis 8 |
Methodology
This year we brought back the panel system from Seasons 3, 4, and 5 with a bit of a twist to accommodate the hybrid season. Players were ranked based on their best three eligible events, including consideration for their wins and losses to land them at their results. 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.
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 six majors had the potential to be the same, it was clear that some events were strictly more competitively stacked than others. The weight of events in order are as follows: Genesis 8, Heat Wave 4, Riptide, RCS Crystal, RCS Fireworks, RCS Hot Springs, RCS Melody. In general, the council favored consistency among events above individual peaks.
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: Jack Ryan (formerly EDC | Junior), 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 Tax1k for our sleek Season 6 steampunk player cards, and CyberHex for additional graphic design support.
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.
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