What inspired SSBMRANK?

For the longest time, we haven’t really had a panel to do rankings of SSBM players. We recently had SSBPD, which was great, but had some system flaws and eventually went down. It wasn’t since the days of MLG that we had a group of players assess the ranks of the top players across the nation. I am a huge fan of metrics and statistics and wanted to see something in 2013 while Smash is still huge. At work, I’ve been experimenting with MySQL and HTML. I wanted to implement these skills into side projects and felt that this project would help me become more comfortable with these languages.

In terms of design and layout, I noticed ESPN.com doing something similar with NFL and NBA players and figured that something similar could be done to celebrate the players who have performed very well over the course of 2013.

I also noticed how friendly the community has gotten. Although it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I felt we lost the “hype” generated through fierce rivalries that other gaming communities have such as Marvel and Street Fighter. I knew that many people would feel some sort of “salt” based on where they were on the list with respect to other players. I would hope this would generate some money matches or exciting tournament sets.

I knew from the get-go that there would be some biases towards players who attend more tournaments. Naturally, these players would leave a lasting impression on the panelists who would rate them. Unintentionally, the players that are “hidden” will probably be underrated to a certain extent. Hopefully, their lower rankings would motivate them to show up to tournaments and perform.

Players that Deserve Mention

My “loose” criterion of the rankings was that you had to attend a US tournament within the past year~. As a result, I choose not to include the following players to rate.

Europeans

–        Zgetto, Amsah, Remen, Pasi, Paju, Baxon, Cyr, Salepate, Tekk, Aska, DancingQueen90, Daumling, Aixx, Aldwyn, Adam, Faab, Thomas, IVP, Hack, Dev

Many of these players are certainly really good, but it is tough to measure them against the players in North America

Other International Players

–        RaynEX, Tuga, Dark, etc…

Bad Omissions

–        Diakonos, Mr. F, Lord_HDL, Vudujin, Lambchops, Wife, Nando,

For certain people on this list, I was under the impression that these players were inactive when, in fact, they weren’t. My apologies to the following players that would have deservedly made the list if they were included.

Others

I know that many people feel upset to not have been included for consideration. My hope is that you don’t lose your hunger to improve and play melee as a result of this rankings. Come out to larger tournaments and show the world why you deserve to be ranked in the next year!

Biases

Region Biases

Most people will probably favor fellow players from their own region because they are more familiar with them and their strengths. East Coast loves their DJ Nintendo. West Coast loves their players. South loves their Plup. Canada loves their PKMVodka. I know that nationals tends to bring out the worse in people because of the pressure, so many players don’t seem to perform when put in a national’s bracket, causing out of region panelists to have a lower perception of their skill level.

By region, WC had about 50% of the votes, EC had 35%, South/MW/Canada had the other 15%. Now, I know that certain regions are over and underrepresented. There were some issues that took place that could have led to this

– Certain regions have higher player densities than other regions

For this reason alone, I think California/WC should have more sway in the votes since they travel in greater numbers to nationals more frequently than other regions (not 50% though).

– Personal relationships

At the beginning of the project, I would safely say that I was merely acquaintances with players of other regions. As a result, they would probably be less likely to do a favor for me as opposed to people in the west coast who would much more readily support my endeavors. Mix in a little bit of busy-ness/laziness from people outside of the west coast and I ended up with a majority of entries from the West Coast. I had so many WC entries, in fact, that I had to reject them. Many would blame me for this, but I tried my best, reaching out to 30-50 people from outside of California, and even paid roughly $100 out of my pocket to incentivize top players to participate for the sake of this research.

– Future

I might do a weighted metric, but it’s tough to say how I would determine what regions get what percentage. This would be similar to the headaches of the Electoral College. Should I be universal and give 1 vote to California and 1 vote to Oregon? It’s tough to figure out a balance, so I’ll have to rework the system.

Legacy Biases

I have noticed a trend in certain players being rated highly, simply because of their outstanding resume they’ve accumulated over the years. Personally, I thought many of the old school players were a tad on the overrated end of things, especially if they didn’t perform well at a recent nationals.

One Tourney Syndrome

Aside from locals, many players had only 1 tournament to showcase their own skill level. For better or worse, this unfairly puts a large weight on a small handful of matches and may or may not be a healthy indicator of overall skill level. I don’t necessarily have a solution to this. It’s really difficult for a player from the East Coast to rate a mid-tier player that they may have seen only once or twice.

A lack of leeway

After establishing a baseline, I realized it’s rather difficult to separate and distinguish people from the 30-130 range. This is because the skill gap is really small and was reflected in the actual average values (not rank) of the players. I should widen the range so that the players can be further placed in distinct categories.

Moving Ahead

I think it’s good to take a step back and look at the beautiful ocean scenery as opposed to the small specks of sand that may look off-colored. I know certain players were probably misrepresented (Vwins cough cough), overrated, or perhaps overlooked completely, but I hope that you guys were able to enjoy the blurbs and other things that were done to attempt to make this project special.

-Tafo