Cactus Game Design Message Boards

For reference, see the first thread of this kind last year.

How do you determine the best overall players in Redemption? Some say RNRS is a great system, some say that it favors those who can attend more tournaments, some say it is the best option we have. However, I firmly believe that National tournaments are the strongest indicator of the skill level of players.

You can download the 2013 rankings.

Math Behind the Rankings:
- Filter out all players who only played T1 2p at one national tournament since 2002. Consistency is a necessary requirement to show your true skill level. Most of the top average finishers were those that only played in one national tournament.
- For every year a player played at nationals, divide player's finish by the total number of players in that given year. The player's finish is thereby represented in terms of percentile. Add all of the percentiles together from each of the years that a player participated in the main event at nationals and divide by the number of years the player has played at nationals. Then multiply by the average number of players at national tournaments since 2002 (78.58333333 players).
- Therefore, the "average finish" is represented as the place the player would have obtained each year if there were 78.58333333 players at nationals each year.

Notes:
- When I first ran these numbers last year, I only looked at 2003-2012. I expanded the numbers to include 2002 this year.
- Even players that are "idle" in T1 2p for a year have their rankings change as the average number of players playing in T1 2p at nationals will vary with each passing year.

For another interesting look I dropped the worst finish for players that have played in more than 2 national tournaments. If a player only played in 2 national tournaments they did not have a placing dropped. This modified ranking list benefits players that performed poorly at one national tournament compared to much stellar results other years.

Top 50 Average T1 2p Finishes at Nationals ('02-'13), min 2 Nationals Minus Worst Finish - Active and Retired Players
#   w/ Worst   Player   Avg Finish (%)
1   (5)   Chad Soderstrom   2.3949 (99.6%)
2   (1)   John Nesfeder   2.9644 (99.1%)
3   (3)   Gabe Isbell   3.0837 (99.0%)
4   (4)   Daniel Huisinga   3.1172 (98.8%)
5   (2)   Joshua Hey   3.4053 (98.5%)
6   (7)   Jonathan Greeson   3.4769 (98.3%)
7   (12)   Matt Stupienski   5.1436 (97.7%)
8   (14)   Jordan Alstad   5.2708 (97.4%)
9   (11)   Burton Reed   5.8494 (97.0%)
10   (6)   Tim Mierzejewski   6.3851 (96.9%)
11   (10)   Matthew Townsend   6.8663 (96.5%)
12   (8 )   Jeremiah Bryant   6.9745 (96.4%)
13   (9)   Michael Turnidge   7.0661 (96.1%)
14   (41)   Chris McCravy   8.3183 (95.2%)
15   (13)   Justin Sangillo   8.4085 (95.1%)
16   (24)   Joel Hey   8.5931 (94.9%)
17   (28)   Sara Harris   9.019 (94.6%)
18   (37)   Josh Pearson   9.0961 (94.4%)
19   (20)   Ben Arp   9.1565 (94.3%)
20   (16)   Martin Miller   9.5998 (94.1%)
21   (31)   Connor Magras   10.2763 (93.6%)
22   (19)   Roy Cannaday   10.3599 (93.4%)
23   (32)   Nathan Voigt   10.6914 (93.%)
24   (22)   Jonathan Alstad   10.7665 (92.8%)
25   (NR)   Reggie Flores   10.9743 (92.5%)
26   (15)   Josh Slinkard   11.1039 (92.3%)
27   (27)   Kirk Dennison   11.2958 (92.1%)
28   (39)   Christian Rohrer   11.7282 (91.5%)
29   (17)   Jesse Epperson   11.7659 (91.3%)
30   (45)   John Earley   12.2407 (91.0%)
31   (47)   Kyle Hostutler   12.486 (90.8%)
32   (18)   Nicholas Marshall   12.6759 (90.5%)
33   (26)   Ken Shartle   12.8289 (90.4%)
34   (21)   Jason O'Rourke   13.0972 (90.2%)
35   (29)   Christian Fong   13.1697 (89.9%)
36   (35)   Tim Maly   13.3393 (89.5%)
37   (23)   Daniel Whitten   13.7449 (88.9%)
38   (NR)   Ben Shadrick   14.2573 (88.7%)
39   (25)   Nick Archick   14.6451 (88.1%)
40   (NR)   Jonathan Slager   14.8647 (87.7%)
41   (36)   Mark Underwood   15.1638 (87.4%)
42   (33)   Josh Knitt   15.9645 (86.4%)
43   (34)   James Roepke   15.9922 (86.3%)
44   (44)   Luke McCrae   16.4535 (85.8%)
45   (30)   James Bryant   16.4727 (85.6%)
46   (40)   Sam Nurge   17.5221 (85.0%)
47   (42)   Josh Ernst   17.7649 (84.8%)
48   (38)   Drew Pegram   17.9315 (84.5%)
49   (46)   David Purvis   18.8728 (83.7%)
50   (50   Alex Olijar      19.0267 (83.5%)
         
Dropped: Jonathan Steckmann (43), Josh Brinkman (48), Timothy Reed (49)

Top 25 Average T1 2p Finishes at Nationals ('02-'13), min 2 Nationals Minus Worst Finish - Active Players
Active Players are defined as players earning RNRS points or participating in this category at nationals in the past 2 years.
#   w/ Worst   Player   Avg Finish (%)
1   (1)   Gabe Isbell   3.0837 (99.0%)
2   (2)   Daniel Huisinga   3.1172 (98.8%)
3   (4)   Jonathan Greeson   3.4769 (98.3%)
4   (6)   Matt Stupienski   5.1436 (97.7%)
5   (8 )   Jordan Alstad   5.2708 (97.4%)
6   (3)   Tim Mierzejewski   6.3851 (96.9%)
7   (5)   Matthew Townsend   6.8663 (96.5%)
8   (7)   Justin Sangillo   8.4085 (95.1%)
9   (9)   Martin Miller   9.5998 (94.1%)
10   (14)   Connor Magras   10.2763 (93.6%)
11   (15)   Nathan Voigt   10.6914 (93.%)
12   (12)   Kirk Dennison   11.2958 (92.1%)
13   (21)   John Earley   12.2407 (91.0%)
14   (22)   Kyle Hostutler   12.486 (90.8%)
15   (10)   Nicholas Marshall   12.6759 (90.5%)
16   (13)   Christian Fong   13.1697 (89.9%)
17   (18)   Tim Maly   13.3393 (89.5%)
18   (NR)   Ben Shadrick   14.2573 (88.7%)
19   (11)   Nick Archick   14.6451 (88.1%)
20   (19)   Mark Underwood   15.1638 (87.4%)
21   (16)   Josh Knitt   15.9645 (86.4%)
22   (17)   James Roepke   15.9922 (86.3%)
23   (20)   Sam Nurge   17.5221 (85.0%)
24   (24)   Alex Olijar      19.0267 (83.5%)
25   (23)   Josh Brinkman   19.0722 (83.0%)
         
Dropped: Mike Wolfe (25)         

Clearly you did not read or understand his math behind 'average percentile'.

Clearly you did not read or understand his math behind 'average percentile'.

Nah, I know how averages work.  I just still found it funny

Josh Hey's National titles were in Type 2.  The best he ever finished in T1-2P was 3rd.

Ahh, good point.

Clearly people are taking these rankings too seriously

This whole website is about a game.  Nobody's making a living or dying here, so naturally we're not taking this too seriously.  It's just a fun way of looking at long term results (which there aren't any official ways to do).

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on September 07, 2013, 09:06:34 AM

Clearly people are taking these rankings too seriously

This whole website is about a game.  Nobody's making a living or dying here, so naturally we're not taking this too seriously.

I was using the word seriously in the sense of "you can't be serious" not in the "serious matter" sense.

Please remove your post. I find it highly offensive that you would insult mathematics like this publicly. 

I removed it.  Although to be clear, I wasn't insulting mathematics as a whole just the branch of the study known as "junk mathematics."

Singling out MKC from all those lists seems a bit unfunny. 

Ahh, I get it now.  I apologize for any confusion there.  I wasn't trying to make MKC look bad.  He is an amazingly talented player, and a significant part of our forum community here.  I was actually trying more to point out that I'm surprised Gabe isn't first.  I'm sorry if I offended you there MKC, you are certainly a better player than I am (and most of the other players on that list).