Rankings
This article is about the current rankings. For past rankings, see Historical Rankings.
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The 4chan Ranking is a ranking system for fictional 4chan image board teams in association football, currently led by /sp/. The teams are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. The rankings were introduced on April 2, 2012. Previous ranking methods had /a/ on top following the inaugural 2011 4chan Summer Cup.
In 2014 it was decided by the 4CCC that the 2014 Spring Babby Cup would not use the rankings to determine seeding groups for the tournament. Instead, the seeding groups were decided based on how the teams gained entry into the tournament. The rankings will continue to be updated regardless of this.
History
Following the inaugural Summer Cup, the 4chan Cup Committee (4CCC) first published a listing in rank order of its member associations to provide a basis for comparison of the relative strengths of these teams. Significant changes were implemented in April 2012 as a reaction to criticisms of the system. Membership of the Elite tournament has expanded from 16 to 24 and most recently to 32 since the rankings began, while Babby Cup membership has expanded from 20 to 32 and most recently to 40; all members are currently included in the rankings.
2011 method
The original method ranked teams by the order n which they were eliminated from the most recent Summer or Winter Cup, irrespective of past results. It was possible for a team which did not participate in any previous tournaments, if it won a Cup, to become ranked number one.
2013 method
In 2013 the calculations were amended in two ways. First, a 12 month season was implemented which included the two most recent Cups and two most recent Babbys. All points outside the season were dropped from the totals, making the rankings more reflective of the events of the Cup year. Further, the Match Status multiplier of Elite Cup games was increased to 2.0, giving more emphasis to the main cup. These changes were intended to rank teams performance based on their recent history. However, it faced criticism because early cup wins were not buoying formerly good teams up, and some teams which participated in all 4 events could receive what were seen as unjustifiably high rankings.
Dragongate
Every part of the 4chan Cup was rocked by this scandal and the rankings were no different. The newly reformed Rankings were thrown into disarray as matches were vacated and results were reversed; as a result, many teams made incredible jumps up and down the rankings. This was a time of great upheaval for the 4CCC, and a distinct turning point in the history of the cup.
Ranking changes
All matches involving a team deemed influenced by Dragonfag were voided according to the following set of criteria:
- Matches with two teams influenced by Dragonfag.
- Matches with one team influenced by Dragonfag, with the match resulting in a victory for the Dragonfag team.
This didn't apply to /sp/ during the 2013 Winter Cup, as the team was deemed legitimate by the Repercussions of Evil document. The situations where the match wasn't voided, are as follows:
- Matches with one team influenced by Dragonfag, with the match resulting in a draw.
- Matches with one team influenced by Dragonfag, with the match resulting in a victory to the other team.
2014 and 2015
After the 2014 4chan Winter Cup, it was decided that due to perceived flaws in the ranking system, the 4CCC would no longer use rankings to determine pot placement for cups' group draws. Instead, the pots are based on how the teams in the cup qualified for said cup.
The Elite Cup pot formula places the top 8 teams from the last Elite Cup (the winners of the last Elite Cup's Round of 16) in Pot 1, the next set of 8 teams from the last Elite Cup (the losers of the last Elite Cup's Round of 16) in Pot 2, the top 8 teams from the last Babby Cup (the winners of the last Babby Cup's Round of 16) in Pot 3, and the next set of 8 teams from the last Babby Cup (the losers of the last Babby Cup's Round of 16) in Pot 4. The Babby Cup pot formula places the top 8 relegated teams from the last Elite Cup (placed 17th-24th in the last Elite Cup) in Pot 1, the bottom 8 teams from the last Elite Cup (placed 25th-32nd in the last Elite Cup) in Pot 2, the top 8 teams that failed to promote from the last Babby Cup (placed 17th-24th in the last Babby Cup) in Pot 3, the next set of 8 teams that failed to promote from the last Babby Cup (placed 25th-32nd in the last Babby Cup) in Pot 4, and the bottom 8 teams from the last Babby Cup (placed 33rd-40th in the last Babby Cup) in Pot 5. Rankings were and are still updated despite losing their main purpose.
Before the 2014 4chan Summer Cup Friendlies, the 4CCC decided to make friendlies no longer count as ranked games. The Summer Friendlies turned out to be the last official friendlies sanctioned by the 4CCC, as official friendlies were abolished before the 2015 4chan Winter Cup as part of sweeping changes to the cup format.
After the 2015 4chan Winter Cup, post-cup drama followed the revelation that two teams, /wsg/ and /ic/, were involved with banned manager OaB; /wsg/'s new manager Knicklicht was a meat-puppet of OaB, while /ic/ manager Pato was knowingly taking tactics from OaB. As a result of this drama, /wsg/ and /ic/ had the points they earned in the Winter Cup removed.
After 41 teams signed up for the 2015 4chan Autumn Babby Cup, a special event (the 2015 4chan Autumn Babby Cup Qualifiers) was played; the 6 matches (group stage) played during this event were counted as official matches and an updated ranking was released after the conclusion of the event to factor in these new matches. Since then Babby Cup Qualifiers have become a proper cup event (again).
Criticism
Despite the ubiquitous adoption of the ranking system by GermanBro Gracen Boris Lear and the 4CCC /merit/, there have been a vocal minority crying out for changes to the system. The complaints mostly relate to perceived disparities between the ranking and the quality of teams. The fact that a team like /sp/ that had been around forever could be 700 points higher than /m/ is was a major talking point for the opposition. Despite /sp/'s 3 straight losses in the 2012 Autumn Friendlies, they were still far ahead of /m/. Teams like /vg/ or /o/ who failed to win a cup being higher ranking than those who did after cups the latter teams won are another complaint about rankings.
Also, because playing additional games is an unequivocal advantage in the ranking system, teams that got relegated to the Babbies and win promotion there would inflate their point totals due to having an entire tournament's worth of additional games. This can cause a bizarre scenario where a yo-yo team (a team that is frequently relegated/promoted) could find itself ranked considerably higher than a team that has never been relegated, when common sense dictates that the top-tier team should be ranked higher. An attempt to abuse this to gain higher ranking by /gd/ in the 2014 4chan Winter Cup led to their manager M3OWMIX being banned for throwing matches and led to the usage of previous cup standings instead of rankings for pot placement in cups.
Another problem is the extra games in the tournaments. In the 2012 4chan Summer Cup, the four best teams all received a bye week, thus missing out on a few hundred points. However, the fact that all tournaments since 2012 have hosted 32 or 40 teams and had no bye weeks made this a one time event, and any points from the 2012 Summer Cup are long gone at this point.
Current calculation method
The system is extremely similar to that of a league, though with changes made to ensure that it is still representative of the teams' performance despite playing differing numbers of matches per six-month period, and the differing strength of opposition that teams have to face. The factors taken into account are as follows:
- Match result
- Match status
- Opposition strength
Teams' actual scores are a result of the average points gained over each calendar year; matches from the previous two years are considered, with more weight being given to recent ones.
Win, draw or defeat
With this system, the points allocation is simple: three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss, in line with most league systems around the world. In the event of a match being decided by a penalty shootout, the winning team receives two points, and the losing team one point.
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Win (no penalty shootout) | 3 |
| Win (penalty shootout) | 2 |
| Draw | 1 |
| Loss (penalty shootout) | 1 |
| Loss | 0 |
In two-legged play-offs, if Team A loses the first leg 2 – 0, then matches the result in the return leg and wins after a penalty shootout, it will receive two points. However, if Team A wins the return leg by one goal only, being eliminated in the process, it will receive 3 points.
Match status
Different matches have different importance to teams, and the 4CCC has tried to respect this by using a weighting system, where the most significant matches are in the Summer/Winter Cups, and the lowest weighted are friendly matches. The 4CCC states that it wishes to recognize that friendlies are still important, since they make up half of the competitive matches counted in the rankings. 4CCC also stated, however, that it did not plan to make any adjustment for teams that qualify directly for major tournaments. The match status multipliers are as follows:
| Match Status | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Summer/Winter (Elite) Cup | 2.0 |
| Spring/Autumn (Babby) Cup | 0.75 (group stage), 1.0 (knockouts) |
| Babby Cup Qualifiers (Fetus) | 0.5 |
Opponent strength
Obviously, a win against a very highly ranked opponent is a considerably greater achievement than a win against a low-rated opponent, so the strength of the opposing team is a factor. This system uses an opposition strength factor based on team rankings. The formula used is:
- Opposition Strength Multiplier = [ ( 75 - ranking position ) / 75 ]
With the exceptions that the team ranked first is given a multiplier of 1.00, and teams ranked 50th and below are assigned the minimum multiplier of 0.33. The ranking position is taken from the opposition's ranking in the most recently published 4Chan Ranking before the match is included in the ranking calculation.
Assessment period
Matches played over the last two years (24 months) are included in the calculation, but there is a weighting to put more emphasis on recent results. The date weighting is as follows:
| Match Date | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| Current Cup/Babby | 1.0 |
| Previous Cup/Babby | 0.5 |
Current event multipliers
Previous 4chan friendlies and tournaments with multipliers depending on the assigned value of the assessment period. The event is dated according to when the last game of the tournament or friendly is played. The multipliers listed below will take effect after the 2017 4chan Winter Cup.
| Event | Date | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 4chan Spring Babby Cup | May 22 | 0.5 |
| 2016 4chan Summer Cup | August 21 | |
| 2016 4chan Autumn Babby Cup Qualifiers | October 8 | |
| 2016 4chan Autumn Babby Cup | November 13 | 1.0 |
| 2017 4chan Winter Cup | February 26 | |
| 2017 4chan Spring Babby Cup Qualifiers | April 28 |
Ranking formula
The final ranking points figure for a single match is multiplied by 75 and rounded to the nearest whole number.
- Ranking Points = [ 75 x ( Result Points x Match Status x Opposition Strength ) ]
Team of the Period
Each period, the 4CCC guy doing rankings hands out an award for team of the period, based on their performance in the rankings. The winners of this """""prestigious""""" """"""""""award"""""""""" are:
| Period | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2017 - Present |  /sp/
|
 /fit/
|
 /mu/
|
| October 2016 - February 2017 |  /o/
|
 /mlp/
|
 /m/
|
| August 2016 - October 2016 | /m/
|
/o/
|
/mlp/
|
| March 2016 - August 2016 |  /out/
|
/fit/
|
/mu/
|
| August 2015 - February 2016 | /mlp/
|
 /g/
|
 /b/
|
| March 2015 - July 2015 |  /tg/
|
 /h/
|
 /ck/
|
| August 2014 - February 2015 |  /vg/
|
 /hr/
|
 /an/
|
| March 2014 - July 2014 |  /trv/
|
/mlp/
|
 /a/
|
| September 2013 - February 2014 |  /wg/
|
/mu/
|
/b/
|
| June 2013 - August 2013 |  /toy/
|
 /int/
|
/sp/
|
| January 2013 - May 2013 | /sp/
|
/toy/
|
/wg/
|
| July 2012 - December 2012 | /sp/
|
/m/
|
 /k/
|
| January 2012 - June 2012 | /sp/
|
/k/
|
/ck/
|
| July 2011 - December 2011 | /a/
|
/ck/
|
/sp/
|
Ranking schedule
Rankings are published after major events such as Summer/Winter Cup, the Spring/Autumn Babby Cup, as well as the accompanying Friendlies Qualifiers (for Babby Cups). Official rankings after friendlies are used to determine the seeding for the upcoming Cup for qualifying teams.
| Event | Est. Month |
| Spring Babby Cup Qualifiers | April |
| Spring Babby Cup | May |
| Summer Cup | August |
| Autumn Babby Cup Qualifiers | October |
| Autumn Babby Cup | November |
| Winter Cup | March |
External links
Current rankings file updated April 17th 2016
Last Tinker/toy/ rankings update from July 21st 2013
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