For the first time since I began writing Power Rankings, I’ll be doing an update after each week of play for both WED and SUN. I’ll keep the explanations shorter than I would for pre-season rankings (hence why I’ve dropped the “Team Reviews” bit from the title for the updates), so whereas the preseason rankings are more about analyzing the teams and players, these will be more about the rankings themselves. The methodology here will be pretty simple — I have some rudimentary numbers on how certain results affect a drop or rise in rank, and I’ll pair that with some subjective thoughts on the teams as well. The number of teams per tier will stay the same, for the sake of simplicity & consistency.
The first number in brackets indicates a team’s preseason ranking, the second indicates their ranking from the previous ranking update, and the final number is the change from the previous ranking update.
Tier 5
16. Rinku (16, 16, +0)
As I’ve said before, I don’t see this team budging from this spot anytime soon, and getting 2–0'd by another low ranked team does nothing to change that.
15. Harbinger (14, 13, -2)
In all honesty, no team specifically deserves to be 15th at the moment, but while others on the lower end are performing, Harb is not. A 2–0 against Rinku matters little, and while losing to a top team generally doesn’t warrant a derank, the circumstances surrounding this tier are as their are, leaving Harb down here.
14. Grimmjow (10, 14, +0)
An expected free win against Rinku — albeit with the help of a rig standin — leaves Grimm’s team right where they were.
Tier 4
13. Cardinalstar (9, 15, +2)
With the roster back together for week 2, Cardinal manages to surprise us by grabbing a game off high ranked Syrphx, giving his team a bump up to tier 4.
12. Neox (8, 11, -1)
I’m unimpressed by Neox’s team and believe that as it stands, Ovi’s is the better of the two despite a tier in their series, so they swap spots.
11. Ovidiu (15, 12, +1)
As mentioned above, having the lead in both games of their series against Neox leads me to believe Ovidiu’s squad is the better of the two, and I feel like they might be on the way up from here.
Tier 3
10. Sakoh (4, 6, -4)
While a 4 rank drop after a forfeit is very harsh, I think this team generally has a lot of things they need to deal with first before being contenders in my eyes. As with many other rank changes in this update, however, this one is also more a result of surrounding circumstances than exact results. In all honesty, I expect this team to hop up a couple of ranks as other higher teams that started high and underperformed keep on doing so.
9. Kevin Richardson (6, 9, +0)
Although I expected Kevin’s team to come out swinging with a 2–0 against a team with internal issues, I’d chalk them dropping a game up to the enemy team getting their shit together for a minute moreso than them massively underperforming. That said, I don’t really see a need to move this team around.
8. hi5 (3, 4, -4)
Most of my updates this season have seen some sort of trend emerge — this time around, it seems to be somewhat harsh deranks in spite of okay results. Still, I believe this team may have needed a larger derank in the first update, which I couldn’t really warrant based on a result that was expected, but nonetheless, I believe they’ll have issues consistently performing through their issues, which, while not insurmountable, are leading to this team being entirely too dependent on KTZ to thrive, and that’s not a realistic expectation in a season like this.
7. RampagingBench (1, 5, -2)
I think this team recognizes many of the same issues they have as I do; we’re coming into week 3 with them still trying to experiment with roles. While I won’t knock that idea, being a mid-season role-swap aficionado myself, I will say that it’s often at best a bandaid trying to cover up bigger issues that are harder to change.
Tier 2
6. Syrphx (7, 3, -3)
I believe this team is still very much a contender, and their placement here (as well as the rest of the top 6, honestly) makes a lot of sense to me. Throwing a game to Cardinalstar pushes them down a tier, but I doubt they’ll see massive drops in the future — though I do think they might be in danger of getting a bit figured out at some point.
5. Neon (11, 7, +2)
Alright, let me use this opportunity to explain this and the next two spots. Originally, based mostly on the results and numbers, this team was third, followed by Play and then T-Reds, but I’ve decided to eschew the numbers for a healthy dose of subjective opinion here: this team is, in my honest opinion, worse than the other two in this grouping of three. However, with that being said, as unlikely a contender as I might’ve thought they would be preseason, they’ve definitely earned a spot in the top tiers.
4. T-Reds (13, 10, +6)
Continuing on from the previous paragraph, despite dropping a game to Neon’s team, who should’ve now been above them due to the previous update’s rankings, I think this is the stronger team of the two — at least for the time being. I feel like it’s more important to me that these updates are more of a reflection of the current state of the division, rather than a reflection of the previous update, so I’m going with my gut here.
Tier 1
3. Play (12, 8, +5)
Alright, bear with me for a second as I finish up this three-team saga. Last night, I’d finished ranking the teams, but as I headed to dinner, I thought back to all prior updates, all of which had me ranking Play’s teams higher and higher. I still have genuine doubts about the genuine player for player quality of this team, but I think Play might just be better than I give him credit for (and I give him a fair bit of credit). Then, as my food came, I see a stream of this team scrimming a stack of immortals and winning fairly convincingly, cementing the idea that I want these updates to at least partially reflect what I actually think about the strength of these teams, leaving little doubt that Play’s team is a top contender.
2. Maus (5, 2, +0)
Perhaps an unexciting finish to some pretty wild rank changes, Maus’ team grabbed a nice 2–0 and thus stay right where they were.
1. Madsen (2, 1, +0)
Another 2–0 means my squad stays planted at the top. My 3k’s a rig, y’all.
A Look Into The Groups
To figure out which of the two Sunday groups is superior, I’ll be ranking the teams within the context of their groups as well, tallying their total ranks to see which is the stronger of the two. The number in brackets indicates a team’s overall ranking in the current division rankings update.
Group A
8. Cardinalstar (13)
7. Kevin Richardson (9)
6. hi5 (8)
5. RampagingBench (7)
4. Syrphx (6)
3. Neon (5)
2. T-Reds (4)
1. Madsen (1)
Group Total: 53 (Previous: 54)
Group B
8. Rinku (16)
7. Harbinger (15)
6. Grimmjow (14)
5. Neox (12)
4. Ovidiu (11)
3. Sakoh (10)
2. Play (3)
1. Maus (2)
Group Total: 83 (Previous: 82)
With now 6 of the top 8 teams in the rankings, Group A remains the significantly stronger of the two groups.
Will this mean some better teams miss out on the playoffs? Will Group B change the status quo? Will this pretty overt attempt at forcing the creation of a rivalry storyline between the two groups hold up?
We shall see in due time.
My writing routine, more often than not, is to take a walk and grab a coffee somewhere. If you want to support my content, you can buy me a coffee, but I’ll keep writing as long as there’s stuff to write about, no matter what.
Thanks for reading!
