After seeing some of the controversy about a proposed new system of ranking players (build in imitation of the scientific, golden standard of the NCAA ranking formula) we here at Stoat’s Center realized there was another wave of content to catch with our boogie-board of mediocre articles! As all players know your ranking in the 40k community is important as, not only does it serve as an important pillar of one’s self esteem (see Fig 1.), they are also used to determine who gets into the lifeboats first on every sinking ship. Thus we propose our own, even more controversial rankings!
Our formula:
Since we had to throw this together quickly we didn’t have much time for careful measurement or “thoughtfulness”. We also saw how another system that relied on top players ranking each other got down-voted to oblivion on Reddit and really want to avoid that to. Thus we decided to develop our own scientific method. This method needed to be objective but also continually updating. After minutes of thinking we came up with a breakthrough solution. Our rankings will be developed based on the number of colors shown in the first google image result for the top 10 ranked ITC players.
This process has numerous advantages:
- The process is scientific and objective. The number of colors can be counted and isn’t vulnerable to subjective opinions
- The process updates, as players win bigger tournaments new pictures will arise thus ensuring a constant churn of new data
- The process works alongside existing rankings to encourage synergy and reliability.
One issue with these rankings is a lack of expert opinion which we will tackle later. As a demonstration let’s take a look at how the current 10 ten in the 40K ITC should really be ranked:
| Name | ITC Ranking | Stoat Center Ranking (TM) |
| Vik Vijay | 1 | 9 |
| Mani Cheema | 2 | 1 |
| David Gaylard | 3 | 2 |
| Jack Harpster | 4 | 4 |
| Thomas Ogden | 5 | 7 |
| Innes Wilson | 6 | 10 |
| Anthony Vanella | 7 | 3 |
| Brad Chester | 8 | 6 |
| Brenton Weiss | 9 | 5 |
| Matt Robertson | 10 | 8 |
Already we can see how this new formula has shaken up our rankings. Innes is the biggest loser here with only a low-grade black and white photo coming up on the initial search really hurting his score. I would keep an eye on Anthony and Mani as they look to be the two individuals with the best shot at taking the crown this January!
As mentioned earlier we are currently lacking expert opinion to really breathe life into these results. Thus as part of the system we are opening up a new Patreon where every can give their opinion! Since we assume only dedicated experts would be willing to play our $99.99 expert 40k player annual registration fee it stands to reason these individuals will also be the most knowledgeable. All of our registered experts are given 1000 points per $100 to assign to any player in the rankings to take advantage of their domestic knowledge.
I have every faith in my new rankings system but would love to get input from the community. Are there any blind spots here or can we count on your support when we launch our new expert program? Let me know in the comments!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
