What are the GosuRankings?
The GosuRankings is the most extensive player database in existence for Hearthstone. Fueled by the GosuGamers tournament database which currently spans over more than 570 tournaments and 18,000 matches, the Hearthstone rankings track players’ career-long performance in all tournaments and qualifiers they take part in and appoints them a certain number.
Since May 2015, the rankings are using a proprietary algorithm, specifically designed to reward consistency, a change tailored to the nature of the Hearthstone game and scene. The rankings also take into account the so called “tournament importance” meaning winning the World Championship means more than coming on top of a weekly $100 open cup. Tournament importance is determined through a variety of factors including format, offline/online, prize pool, invitational/partially open/open, having HCT points or not and more.
Note: Recent results aren't solely responsible for the final rankings.
Photo: WESG Flickr
1. Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert
Although he’s not running for 2016 world champion, ex-NaVi marquee player Xixo is entering its eleventh week as GosuRanking’s #1 player, the longest in rankings history. Xixo is yet to beat the GosuRankings peak record of Thijs “ThijsNL” Molendijk’s 1,450 but with 1,433 himself, he’s not far off, a couple of wins away at most. That’s not even counting all the times he finished top 3 or top 5 which would basically make for the entire year, more or less.
Xixo’s consistency easily make him the worthiest candidate for player of the year thus far as even the potential World Champion will be far behind the German in terms of year-long tournament performances. Of the eight who still have a shot at the quarter million, Artem “DrHippi” Kravets if far and away the most accomplished with multiple major high finishes and repeat HCT appearances and even if he comes out victorious, Blizzcon alone won’t make up for a difference of 200+ points. No, unless there’s a series of match flops for Xixo at DreamHack Winter, he would still be reigning the rankings by the end of November.
That’s just been his year all along.
Photo: Carlton Beener / Blizzard
2. Pavel “Pavel” Beltukov
For Pavel, 2015 ended with one of the most embarrassing misplays in Hearthstone history, and Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy will long be thankful as it gifted him a Blizzcon spot. So, what was the young Russian to do in the new year, but give his best for a fresh start?
And fresh start he had, chaining one deep tournament run after another. In February, he won the $10,000 Hearthstone Champions League over Sebastian “Ostkaka” Engwall, followed it with couple of strong DreamHack runs and collected enough HCT points to qualify for Europe’s Last Call Invitational, the most cut-throat HCT tournament of the year. His high GosuRankings score proved just how important is consistency over winning championships in a game like Hearthstone and for the last two months he hasn’t been out of the top ten.
This week, Pavel will try to take what he missed last year: The World Championship trophy. His gameplay looked shaky on the opening day but the Russian has recovered since and is a strong contender for the cup, especially with his new team-mates from Millenium behind him.
Photo: PGL Flickr
3. Stanislav “StanCifka” Cifka and Jan “SuperJJ” Janssen
Very similar to Pavel, the Czech card slinger has climbed to the high layers of the rankings based on consistency more so than individual championships. His most recent successes include a bronze from DreamHack Valencia and silver from PGL Bucharest, which come on top of Cifka’s two-year career of constantly being on top of his game. A former MTG Pro Tour champion, Cifka knows how to beat swiss rounds which, over the past year, have become the defining mark of the most important majors.
Cifka’s top 3 spot, however, could be short-lived as he’s dead even with Complexity’s SuperJJ at 1,265 points. SuperJJ had a tremendous start of the year, snowballing his high-tail performance at the end of 2015 and for the longest time was Xixo’s GosuRankings rival for the top spot but has fallen a bit since. For both these players, the next big tournament – which looks to be DreamHack Winter at the end of November – will be paramount to their GosuRankings position going into December.
Photo: TakeTV Flickr
5. Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy
The SeatStory Cup V champion is back in his old tournament-winning form, the one that absolutely dominated February-March of 2015, and recently added the Kinguin for Charity first place to his account, putting his total prize winnings very close to the $130,000 mark. Regardless, Lifecoach is still nail-bitingly close to both SuperJJ and StanCifka, lagging just seven points behind.
What’s potentially good news for Lifecoach is that he has something that SuperJJ, Cifka or even Pavel don’t have: a seed in the weekly Celestial Invitational, meaning he doesn’t have to wait till the next major to cash in some points. Then again, it could mean his downfall, too, especially if his day one loss to Zhang "ZhangBo" Bo (4-9) is any indication how the rest of his Celestial Invitational matches will go.
GosuRankings Europe Top 10
While the World Championship campaign isn’t as dominant as it hoped, Europe still holds nine of the top ten spots in our rankings. And while the perceived strength of the Hearthstone regions is arguable, it cannot be denied that currently Europe is the central hub for tournament activity, hosting the significantly larger part of the majors and giving disproportionately more opportunities to its home-grown players compared to rival regions such as the Americas.
