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Read this first
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Because this is the first time we ever do a feature on GosuRankings, I guess a few words of introduction need be written. Please, do go through the paragraphs below, they are an important guide to what GosuRankings represent, how to read them, how are they calculated and how do they behave within the current state of competitive Hearthstone.
A: The GosuRankings are GosuGamers’ official player and team rankings, first established during the BroodWar days of the website. With time, they were linked to more and more disciplines and at the present time, they are among the most accurate player/team ranking systems for Dota 2, League of Legends and since March 2014 – for Hearthstone as well.
In its core, the GosuRankings are a collection of competitive tournaments with varying importance which determine players’ position in the rankings depending how they have performed in the tournaments recorded in the database. As of the time of this article, more than 350 Hearthstone televised tournaments, weekly cups, qualifiers and showmatches have been recorded. Note, that GosuRankings do not take into account ladder results or player’s popularity – it is only tournament performance that matters.
Q: What do you mean by “varying tournament importance”?
A: We believe that like in every sport, different tournaments have different importance. Winning BlizzCon world championship, for example, should yield significantly more points than grabbing a $100 weekly cup. When we create a tournament, we weigh in several factors like prize pool, participating players, format, offline/online, length of tournament and several more.
We also constantly re-evaluate these tournament tiers and adjust future events based on where they stand in the current competitive eco system.
Q: How are players’ rankings calculated?
A: The GosuRankings are loosely based on an Elo system, with few adjustments to have it more adequately fit the needs of the eSports climate. When they compete in tournaments, players win and lose different amount of points, which depends on the current ranking of their opponent (you win more points if you beat a higher-placed player and vice versa) as well as the tournament tier (you win more points if you win a match in highly-ranked tournament).
A couple of mechanics have been implemented on top of that system to make it more accurate. First, inactive players will experience rating decay after a certain number of days with no matches played. Decay brings players closer to the starting 1,000.
In addition, the GosuRankings employ the so called “reliability rating” which is another multiplier that affects inactive players. The reliability rating starts at 1.00, gradually decays when a player doesn’t compete regularly, and affects the end Elo rating as well as how many points they will gain/lose on their next match. Players will always want to have their reliability rating at 1.00 which in turn incentivizes them to compete more often.
Q: You mentioned something about Hearthstone competitive climate. What the hell do you mean by that?
We’ve been monitoring the competitive Hearthstone scene since early January when we decided we definitely want to make GosuRankings a thing. For these past sixth months of tournament backlogging, talking to players and observing the game in general, we’ve found out several bullet points worth listing down:
- Hearthstone – like most card games – is a much more volatile game than other eSports disciplines. The random element means that at any point of time, the best player can easily lose to the worst player. This will never happen in StarCraft 2, for example, where a Jaedong simply won’t lose to a bronze leaguer. As a result, it is difficult for Hearthstone players to maintain a steady win rate and their Elo often has big drops or rises, larger than the players in other disciplines.
- The majority of the competitive scene is still composed of weekly open tournaments and invitationals, and those are lower ranked than, say, big offline events with five-digit prize pools. Although we're getting more and more high-paying tournaments, those of which going into the five figures are still a handful. This results in two things:
- The GosuRankings experience a major sway after every major tournament. Sometimes this shift looks bigger than it should, but that’s a direct consequence of the state of the scene
- The discrepancy in the number of weekly and big tournament leads to having a lot of players between 1,000 and 1,100 rating since there aren’t many opportunities to gain points in bulk. This in turn results in big fluctuations in this range after every single weekly cup which will never happen in eSports with more developed competitive scene and should stop happening in Hearthstone after a while
- With all that in mind, do note that at this point, the Hearthstone GosuRankings should not be read literally. There will never be a HS player ranking which will accomplish that, because of the nature of the game. Instead, treat them as a basic outline of who the good players, factoring in their all-time records and current performance.
What happened in August?
Just like we promised in the previous edition of the GosuRankings report, we have our eye on Asian Hearthstone. Over the past couple of weeks, we've been scouting Hearthstone competitions in the east - more particularly in China - and we've added more data to our tournament database. With those, changes came:
- China georankings have now been enabled: There's a lot of competition happening in China, which remains largely untelevised due to the language barrier and lack of coverage sites to report on that. From now on, GosuGamers will try to remedy that - we'll be closely monitoring Chinese competition and building the profiles of the Chinese players so when BlizzCon arrives we have some tangible records to show you. Still, a few notes about the Chinese georankings must be taken:
- Chinese tournaments are ranked lower than NA and EU tournaments, despite having, for the most part, bigger prize pools. A 5,000 EU tournament, for example, will have bigger impact than a $5,000 Chinese one. This is done to prevent major anomalies in the global rankings.
- In spite of this, there are a few players that will be ranked higher than some western players. We realize that this might come out as strange to the majority of our readership, but please give it some time: such abrupt rankings climb are normal for a young scene and are normalized over time.
- China has already finished its final BlizzCon qualifier while the other regions have not, meaning the westernerns and the rest of Asia still have some points to earn in that regard and, possibly, beat the Chinese in the rankings.
- With many more players getting ranked, the global georankings are too small for everyone: Hearthstone will always be a game when there isn't a single best player but a handful of them. Now that we're not only following EU and NA scenes but also China and soon the rest of Asia, ranking all four regions on one single page becomes... difficult. That's why we suggest two things:
- When judging player's strength, filtering the georankings will give a more optimal portrayal for the time being. While we believe there will come a time when the global top 50 will really be representative of the scene's powerhouses, we're not there yet (check the spoiler text above about the closeness of players' Elo ranks).
- Don't just consider the number before player's name. Instead, explore their player profiles and tournament records and observe the Elo points of his competitors. Sometimes, 30 points mean the difference between top 100 and top 10.
- Tournament organizers who chose to consult the GosuRankings for tournament invites should also use the georankings filter for these exact reasons. Sometimes, a player will be top 16 in his region but not appear on the front worldwide page because there are so many players being ranked at the same time.
What's next?
- Starting September, tournaments with no prize pool are no longer ranked.
- We're contemplating the idea of lowering the rankings for showmatches even lower. Right now, they might be yielding more points than a 2-man showmatch should.
- We're observing open weekly cups like ZOTAC or NESL. The problem with those is that only the top 8 grid is counted in the rankings, which leads to players losing points if they get eliminated in the quarter finals. Since working in entire 512-player grids is close to impossible for our crew - all our rankings are done manually - we'll consider cutting weekly tournaments altogether by the end of the year.
- Note: This will very much depend on the competitive climate of Hearthstone. If the amount of big tournaments is still small, weekly cups will stay as they will remain an important part of the scene.
Now, let's get to actual rankings.
As noted above, the current GosuRankings are the result of more than 350 events, dating as far back as October 2013. We’re aiming to have as complete scope of tournament as possible and thus have logged in big tournaments like DreamHack, online events like HyperX Invitational, weekly open cups such as GosuCup and NESL, as well as showmatches like Deck Wars and King of the Hill. Every month, more than 50 tournaments are added to our database, making it more complete each time.
NOTE: The rankings displayed below are as of September 1st. They might be changed at the time this article is live.
May rankings
June rankings
July rankings
Global rankings and top 5 recap
How is he doing it. For a second month in a row, 
Dima "Rdu" Radu holds the crown spot in the world rankings. Very close to the 1,260 points, the Romanian continues his hot streak which started in June when he finished second behind Amaz and right now he's likely the most consistent player in recent Hearthstone history.
The month didnt's start too well for Rdu as he faced round one elimination in VGVN #1, despite considered one of the favorites to take the crown. His recovery was swift, though: Over the course of just a few days, Rdu snatched back-to-back gold medals at the HyperX Invitational following a gruesome run through the losers bracket and at the House of Cards tournament where he drilled through Alchemixt, Trump and Massan. In under four days, Rdu won $3,000. Not a bad way to close the month.
In second place, we have the one and only 
Cong "StrifeCro" Shu, who continues to maintain his 76% win-rate. The SeatStory Cup champ didn't have the most active of months (he only gained 8 points compared to his July position) but made it count in the few showmatches he was invited to compete. StrifeCro 4-0'd the then #1 ranked player Amaz and four days later he snatched a 4-3 victory over #10 player Brad. He also made a top 6 finish at Prismata Cup, going 4-1 in the swiss round, which helped him stay high, despite the relatively slow August weeks.
At number three we have Drew "TidesofTime" Biessener, who for a second month now can't manage to overtake StrifeCro from the NA crown. At the start of the month, Tides won the North American WEC qualifiers and finished second at Prismata Cup and was on his way to beating the Cloud 9 player when he crashed and burned at the HyperX Invitational, losing in LBR1 after a 1-3 to Trump and 1-3 to Rdu. Maybe next month, Drew. Maybe next time.
In fourth place, we have Rdu's greatest rival, 
Jason "Amaz" Chan. The race against the Romanian for the top position of the GosuRankings have always been fierce and for two months in a row, the two have been neck and neck, always occupying the top two spots and leaving everyone else behind. Amaz took the first place in June, Rdu inherited it in July and August was supposed to break the tie.
Compared to past months, however, this one wasn't at all consistent for Liquid's signee. He would disappoint, then perform excellently, then disappoint again. His win in VGVN #1 and triumph over Reynad in Deck Wars were his biggest accomplishments this month which, paired with early elimination in WEC NA, HyperX Invitational, VGVN #2 and the unconvincing result at House of Cards, have put him on a 41% win-rate for August.
Finally, closing the top 5 we have Ukrainian super star and deck innovator 
Aleksandr "Kolento" Malsh. Kolento was on the rise already finishing second in Millenium Cup in June and third in WEC Europe in July but was still looking for his first tournament win. It eventually came on the fields of VGVN #2. An absolutely dominant run saw Kolento rip through Realz, Trump, Xixo, ThijsNL and Hyped for an undefeated 5-0 run in series and 17-4 in games.
With the scene picking up in September, Kolento should be a player to watch. Although a good 130 points away from the #1 position, the Ukrainian has a good shot at the top 3 at least and a successful month can easily put him there.
Note: China and Asia rankings are too young yet, that's why they're not represented separately hereby.
Competitive Hearthstone is not a popularity contest.
For as long as we've tracked players' performances, we've noticed that much: A streamer with a huge fanbase is not necessarily king of the tournament scene. Whether he/she is crushing the ladder or maintaining an 80% arena win rate matters not: Tournaments are a different test of skill altogether. They require deck planning, meta teching, research and a certain mentality if one is to be successful.
As we added more and more tournament to the database, the player population got polarized. On the very top, deservedly, stood the players who made every invitation and every weekly cup count. They became the faces of competitive Hearthstone.
On the other end, we had the representatives of let's call it "casual" or "streamer" Hearthstone and those had difficulties adapting to what tournament environment requires. They would still be unfathomably good on stream... just not quite enough to transfer it to a competitive bracket.
Photo: IEM
This month, change came for two names: 
Jeffrey "Trump" Shih and Harry "Massan" Cheong. At the end of July, both were stuck in the lower levels of the rankings, on the very last pages of all 975 players currently ranked. They didn't play much and when they did, the results were poor. Their records were, as follows:
- Trump: 11-22 or 33% win rate between January and July
- Massan: 5-7 or 41% win rate between February and July
Massan's journey out of the bottom began with the WEC Korean qualifiers. Although he only finished top 5, he got the handful of points that would push him above his previously abysmal 990 rating. Where he really shines as the House of Cards tournament, where victories over Blackout and Amaz gave him the necessary boost he needed.
Ironically, by the time of this article, Massan will have fallen low again, following a 1-3 loss to TiddlerCelestial in the CN vs KR Masters. Whether or not he's someone capable of winning a tournament remains to be seen.
Trump, on the other hand, has shown visible improvement when it comes to his tournament play. Where one could argue Massan's spike was a result of a lucky break, Trump has been doing consistently better. Over the course of couple of weeks, the Mayor of Value town finished fourth in HyperX Invitational, third in House of Cards and top four in VGVN #2, showcasing an ability to adapt when outside his arena comfort zone.
Unfortunately, the GosuRankings still doesn't allow us to adequately track team rankings. Our future plans 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 there is no mathematics to support it. Last month, we tried separating teams into two tiers but this month we're trying something different. Instead of doing an editorial power rankings, we've calculated the average Elo of the most popular teams and rating them this way.
This month, we'll also be ranking the best Asian teams. We'll keep the standings in different tables until we get more international competition.
NOTE: Only teams with three or more ranked players have been listed. Teams with Elo lower than 1,000 are omitted.
| # | Team (Europe & North America) | Points | Diff. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  | Cloud 9 | 1086,00 | +1 |
| 2. |  | Tempo Storm | 1068,80 | -1 |
| 3. |  | Meet Your Makers | 1063,29 | - |
| 4. |  | Team Coast | 1052,33 | - |
| 5. |  | Don't Kick My Robot | 1029,17 | - |
| 6. |  | Innovation | 1016,00 | +2 |
| 7. |  | Copenhagen Wolves | 1015,00 | - |
| 8. |  | vVv Gaming | 1009,20 | +2 |
| 9. |  | eSuba | 1006,80 | - |
| 10. |  | Team MiA | 1005,71 | N/A |
| # | Team (Korea and China) | Points | Diff. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  | Golden Coin | 1035,33 | - |
| 2. |  | Zhanqi | 1030,33 | - |
| 3. |  | Invictus Gaming | 1018,40 | - |
| 4. |  | World Elite | 1007,66 | - |
| 5. |  | Big3 | 1004,33 | - |
| 6. |  | Team L | 1003,33 | - |
Kolento photo by Millenium.org. Massan photo by ESL. All other photos by GosuGamers.
