Akaland Power Ranking

The Akaland Power Ranking (APR) is the ranking system used for the Akaland SSBU Circuit. It lists what is believed to be the most accurate top 12 in the server with regard to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. From iterations 1-6, the APR ranked all competitive Ultimate players in the Akaland Discord server. Due to concerns with growing player pools and potentially upsetting players who find themselves on the lower end of the list, the APR has been revised to only rank the top 12 in the server for iterations 7-present.

## Methodology

### Overview

The APR is measured in three different categories: **Judge Rank** (JR), **TrueSkill™ Rank** (TSR), and combined **True Rank** (TR). The official APR is scored in terms of True Rank, but all three rankings are displayed on announcements.

### Judge Rank

The first ranking factored into the APR is the Judge Rank. Members of the community, handpicked by Akamos, compile their list of top 12 players and submit their ranking to be included in the APR. A player's Judge Rank is the average placement given by the judges, ranging from the highest possible 1.0 to the lowest possible number, which changes depending on the number of judges. If a player is included on one judge's ranking but not another's, the judge who did not include that player will be counted as having ranked that player 13th out of 12, so all judges' opinions are still incorporated.

The Judge Rank is the first rank displayed in the APR and the more important of the smaller rankings, making up 60% of the True Rank. The judges change in Quantity and identity on every new iteration of the APR, with only a handful being perennial judges. Judge Rank is rounded to one decimal place.

### TrueSkill™ Rank

The second ranking factored into the APR is the TrueSkill™ Rank. This ranking makes use of the TrueSkill™ algortihm developed by braacket.com, including every player's various wins and losses and compiling what it finds to be the most unbiased ranking based off of tournament results alone. Players can, however, challenge each other to "elo matches", in which players agree to have their best of 5 set played outside of a tournament setting be spectated by a tournament organizer and included in the TrueSkill™ Rank.

Due to the inability of an algorithm to watch matches or take into account practice matches outside of a tournament setting, the TrueSkill™ Rank has been relegated to the lesser of the two rankings included in the True Rank, claiming 40% of said ranking.

### True Rank

#### Calculation

The True Rank is calculated as an average of the previous two rankings, but with different weights attributed to each rank. The Judge Rank takes up 60% of the True Rank, while the TrueSkill™ Rank takes up 40%. The formula for calculating True Rank is (JR x .6) + (TSR x .4).

#### Use

The True Rank is the final ranking for each player, meaning that one player scoring higher with judges or the algorithm than another does not decide their PR placement, but instead the weighted average of the two. A player can have a worse Judge Rank than another and still place higher due to a better TrueSkill™ Rank. Additionally, True Rank is rounded to two decimal places.

## Iterations

V1-V6 ranked all players in the server. For the sake of consistency, these will be reduced to the top 12 plus three honorable mentions.

### APR V1

April 13, 2021

HM: Flame, jkae13, Trendonamo

### APR V2

May 8, 2021

HM: jkae13, Jackson, Greenlit

### APR V3

May 29, 2021

HM: Map, whyguy, Greenlit

### APR V4

June 30, 2021

HM: Delta Zulu, Map, Greenlit

### APR V5

July 19, 2021

HM: whyguy, Greenlit, Map

### APR V6

July 29, 2021

HM: Flame, BlackNebula, Greenlit

### APR V7

October 3, 2021

HM: wrecc, WahluigiKing, whyguy

### APR V8

November 22, 2021

HM: whyguy, BlackNebula, Map

### APR V9

August 7, 2022

HM: JuanR773, Map, ajrian

## Trivia

* APR V1 did not use TrueSkill™ Rank, it was a hand-designed Elo system run by Tenn0n.
* The only two players to be ranked in the top five of every single APR are Akamos and NicoDee.
* Greenlit is the only player to appear as an Honorable Mention more than once and never make the PR.
* MacTheAvenger, BlackNebula, Mello, and Delta Zulu were all considered PR players and voted into spots before ever playing in a tournament.
* Akamos and Spectro are the only two to appear as judges for every single APR.
* Despite winning their respective debut tournaments, MacTheAvenger and PlantFan17 have never been ranked #1.