ELO Rankings

## Understand Your Competitive Standing The ELO Rankings system on Spaghetti Showdown provides a skill-based rating for every player who competes in ranked tournaments. Based on the well-established ELO rating algorithm, this system gives you a numerical score that reflects your performance relative to other players in the community. ### How ELO Is Calculated The ELO system works on a simple principle: you gain points for winning and lose points for losing, with the amount depending on the relative skill of your opponent. **Key factors in the calculation:** - **Your current rating vs your opponent rating** — Beating a higher-rated player earns you more points than beating a lower-rated player. Conversely, losing to a lower-rated player costs you more points. - **Tournament significance** — Ranked and featured tournaments carry more weight than casual events. - **Match result** — Only wins and losses matter. The score margin does not affect ELO changes. Every new player starts at a **base rating of 1000**. As you compete, your rating adjusts based on your results. Over time, the rating converges on a value that accurately represents your skill level relative to the community. ### The Rankings Leaderboard The **Rankings** page displays the current leaderboard sorted by ELO rating. Each entry shows: - **Rank** — Your position relative to all other rated players - **Player Name** — With a link to the full player profile - **ELO Rating** — Your current numerical rating - **Games Played** — The number of ranked matches contributing to your rating - **Win Rate** — Your overall win percentage in ranked matches - **Trend** — Whether your rating has been going up or down recently ### Filtering the Rankings The leaderboard includes powerful filters to help you find the information you need: **By Game:** Select a specific game to see rankings only for that title. Each game has its own independent ELO ladder, so your Street Fighter rating is separate from your Tekken rating. This ensures that rankings accurately reflect skill within each game. **By Time Period:** Filter by time period to see who is performing best recently. Available periods include: - **All Time** — The complete historical ranking - **This Season** — Rankings for the current competitive season - **This Month** — A snapshot of recent performance - **This Week** — The most volatile view, showing who is on a hot streak **By Character:** Some games support character-specific rankings. If you play multiple characters, you can see how you rank with each one separately. This is useful for identifying your strongest character and tracking improvement across your roster. ### What Affects Your Rankings Not all matches contribute to your ELO. Rankings are updated based on: - **Ranked tournament matches** — The primary source of ELO changes - **Matchmaking games** — If the matchmaking system is enabled for ranked play - **Community tournaments** marked as ranked by the organizer Casual matches, friendlies, and unranked events do not affect your ELO rating. ### Using Rankings to Improve - **Track your progress** over time to see if your training is paying off - **Identify strong opponents** to seek out challenging matches - **Set goals** like reaching a specific rating milestone or leaderboard position - **Analyze your matchups** by looking at which opponents cost you the most rating points The ELO system rewards consistent performance and gives every player a clear picture of where they stand.