Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack
What are the GosuRankings?
The GosuRankings is the most extensive player database in existence for Hearthstone. Fueled by the GosuGamers tournament database which currently spans over more than 510 tournaments and 16,000 matches, the Hearthstone rankings track players’ career-long performance in all tournaments, qualifiers and showmatches they take part in and appoints them a certain numbers.
Since May, the rankings are using a proprietary algorithm, specifically designed to reward consistency, a changed tailored to the nature of the Hearthstone game and scene. The rankings also take into account the so called “tournament importance” meaning winning the World Championship means more than coming on top of a weekly $100 open cup.
Below, we take a look at the bigger events that happened in the month of June. To exemplify the ranking importance, we've provisionally tiered them on the scale of "Tier 4" (lowest) to "Tier 1" (highest).
- Note 1: May's results aren't solely responsible for the final rankings; they merely add to players' lifetime career performances.
- Note 2: Tournament importance varies even within a particular tier (i.e. not all tier 2 events are equal)
- Note 3: Tiers are NOT the official way of determining/naming tournament importance by GosuCrew. These are used so that some basic mechanics of the system are articulated better to our readers.
| Event & prize pool | Tier | Winner | Runner-up |
| DreamHack Summer • $40,000 | Tier 1 |  TiddlerCelestial |  Dog |
| OGN Korea Masters 2 • $25,000 | Tier 1 |  Surrender | Seulsiho |
| ESL Legendary Season 2 • $25,000 | Tier 1 | Phonetap | Reynad |
| Nvidia Pro/Am • $25,000 | Tier 2 |  ViktorStay |  Blackspace |
World's top 3
All ranking numbers are as of July 2nd. It's possible that rankings have changed at press time.
Photo: Ben Cotton / DreamHack
For the first time since the rankings exist, we have a non-Westerner on the top of the rankings report.
To be fair, TiddlerCelestial is not new to this position. During his BlizzCon 2014 campaign, Tiddler was on the way to become world's top ranked player as he made back-to-back finals in the biggest tournaments of the year. Then, Firebat robbed him of that success but now he's finally on the top.
Tiddler's ascendance is tied with his increased rate of travelling abroad. In late March, he went to Sweden to place top four at HouseCup #2. His next trip to the western Mecca of esports yielded even greater success - a first place at the $40,000 DreamHack Summer, the highest paying tournament in the west so far this year.
If you're sceptical towards Tiddler's form, be reminded that the Team Celestial captain and founder is also the current highest-winning player in Hearthstone, with upwards of $124,000 gathered from tournament prizes alone. He's also the only GosuRanked player to ever pass the 1,300 points mark, a feat attempted and failed by many others before him.
Photo: Adela Sznajder / DreamHack
Kolento is a player whose results are not really dictated by recent performances so much by his overall career, especially in 2015. Think of him as the European StrifeCro, only with more gold medals on his account.
Kolento didn't win anything in June. In fact, the only major tournament he attended ended disastrously, a first round elimination at ESL Season 2. But his 2015 record is just mindblowing. Since January this year, Kolento has earned more than $41,000 from various tournaments. That's already 30% more than he won for the entire 2014. He has six gold medals and two more top fours. He might not have ruled June with an iron fist, but he's the definition of consistency and there are no signs he will stop being so.
Photo: Frederike Schmitt / DreamHack
Seeing Firebat once again in here comes almost as no surprise. This is the fifth month in a row where the World Champion has finished in the top three.
His rank is dropping, however. Where previously he was one win away from accomplishing what TiddlerCelestial did, Firebat currently is in the lower 1,200s of the ranking. May and June were slow months for him: he played a few games only and ended with a 6-7 overall record for these months. Compared to the fruitful March (10-5) and April (15-9), summer has not brought the greatest success to Firebat. The biggest upset for him was probably DreamHack Summer, where back-to-back losses at the start of the swiss round eliminated him from the race.
Even though he's still in a very good position, his rivals are catching up. Recent weeks are seeing the rise of David "Dog" Caero who took silver at DreamHack and is tearing through PVPLive's HPL. With Dog still having a lot of HPL games left, it's very possible that July sees a new king of the North American rankings.
Team rankings
Unfortunately, the GosuRankings still doesn't allow us to adequately track team rankings. Future iterations of the ranking system are planned to include an algorithm which can calculate that based on members' individual performances (i.e. every win a player scores helps not only him but his team as well) but for now this is still uncharted territory.
Nevertheless, we believe ranking teams is fun even if it's based on the simplest math of averaging Elo scores. Note that only teams with at least three actively competing team members have been ranked, so if you don't see a particular team for which you know its players are good and winning tournaments, it's likely because of that.
Note: The averaged rankings have been calculated as of July 4th.
| # | Team | Points | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  | Team Celestial | 1135,30 | +2 |
| 2. |  | Cloud 9 | 1114,60 | -1 |
| 3. |  | Nihilum | 1105,25 | -1 |
| 4. |  | Team Archon | 1085,17 | -1 |
| 5. |  | Luminosity | 1075,30 | N/A |
| 6. |  | Team Liquid | 1055,00 | -1 |
| 7. |  | Tempo Storm | 1051,00 | +2 |
| 8. |  | Fade 2 Karma | 1051,00 | N/A |
| 9. |  | Trig Esports | 1041,67 | -3 |
| 10. |  | Hearthlytics | 1040,33 | N/A |
After many months of competition between Cloud 9 and Nihilum for the top spot, there's a new winner. Just like with the individual rankings, Team Celestial are the kings of the list after June.
Let's not beat around the bush - Celestial's averaged 1,135 Elo is mostly carried by their captain TiddlerCelestial. Even though SilentStorm is also in good shape, the majority of the points still come from the most recent DreamHack Champion as FrozenIce is not in top form and the rest of the roster is focusing on roles other than playing competitively.
Below Celestial, Cloud 9 and Nihilum are still entangled in their old rivalry. With mere five points difference, Cloud 9 pulled ahead, mostly due to Gnimsh's stepping down as competitive player. Nihilum, meahwhile, are mostly carried by the mighty shoulders of Lifecoach with a little help from ThijsNL. With Rdu in slow though improving form and Lothar's two-month sabbatical in May and June, Nihilum will have to be more active and more successful in July if they want back on the top.
Now that we've covered the top dogs, let's gave a round of applause to the new kids on the block. At #5 we have Luminosity, a newly-formed team with a powerful trio featuring DreamHack Bucharest champion Stanislav Cifka alongside veterans Impact and Ignite. On #8, there's another fresh roster of Fade 2 Karma. Featuring mostly underdog old-timers, F2K's position only shows how there are a big number of great players the community better start paying attention to.
Finally, just on the edge of the rankings we welcome to roster of Hearthlytics. Featuring recent ESL Season 2 champion Phonetap as well as qualifier powerhouses like JAB and Muzzy, the NA team is the last fresh face in this month's top 10.
Georankings
From left to right and top to bottom, the georankings represented are "World", "Europe", "North America", "Asia" and "China".
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