As you compete in accredited tournaments in the Silph Arena your performance affects your global player rank. Increasing your rank can unlock new player tiers, earn you prestigious positions on the global leaderboard, and even qualify you for an invitation to exclusive tournaments on the path to becoming a world champion.

This resource will answer common questions and explain the mechanics of player rank.

Expect Adjustments & Improvements! The Silph Arena is in a constant state of improvement - so adjustments and improvements should be expected as we trailblaze together. ❤

The Basics: Player Rank 101

You begin your journey in the Silph Arena at the first player tier: Trainer . Competing in ranked tournaments hosted by Silph League communities will provide you an opportunity to gain (or lose) player rank. As you battle with opponents, the Arena learns more about your skill level. Perform well and you will soon be on your way to greatness!

Player Tiers

After beginning as a Trainer tier competitor, you can climb up through Rival , Challenger , Ace , and more. These will appear on your Travelers Card, on global, national, and community leaderboards, and beside your name when attending Tournaments. The progress bar indicates how close you are to climbing to the next tier. Player tiers and ranks will remain intact for the entire season and will be reset when the new season begins in 2020. Competitors will be rewarded for their final Season player tier when the season concludes.

Monthly Cups

Each month the Arena hosts a global themed Cup with unique rules. These Cups are designed to be hosted and played by local communities and provide the largest opportunity for you to improve your player rank. That is because you may select one tournament during each Cup to receive extra weight and give your performance 10x more rank impact than non-weighted tournaments. Any additional Cup tournaments you participate in during the Cup will simply contribute towards your rank without the extra weight. (See Additional Ranked Tournaments below)

Your Weighted Cup

You must explicitly denote which Cup will receive rank weight each month while registering for that tournament. A checkbox will appear below your Battle Team selection for this purpose which is checked (opted-in) by default. This cannot be changed once a tournament begins, so choose carefully!

Note: As in Season 1, you may denote multiple Cups as 'eligible' for weighted rank impact. Weight will be assigned to the earliest of the Cups which qualified for rank, in chronological order of when their first round began.

Additional Ranked Tournaments

Aside from your one weighted (10x) Cup tournament each month, you may compete in as many additional ranked tournaments as you wish in the Arena (including additional Cup tournaments). However, only 10 additional tournaments can contribute to your player rank every month. These receive rank weight beginning at 1x weight and diminish linearly to 0x weight each time.

Cup Trophies

Competing in a Cup tournament that successfully concludes all matchups will earn each competitor a digital collectible trophy for your Trophy Case! You can view your Cup trophies on your Travelers Card at sil.ph/username . If you win a tournament, i.e. score (or tie with) the highest win count in the tournament, and it successfully qualifies for rank, you will receive a special gold-tier trophy variant. Earning the second-highest win count will earn a silver-tier trophy, while landing in the top half of the tournament will award a bronze-tier trophy. Winning very large tournaments can earn even higher trophy tiers - but these are very rare!

How Match Outcomes Impact Your Rank

When you compete in a tournament, the Arena software (silph.gg) will assign you opponents whom you will battle three times each. The Arena analyzes these data points on each competitor and their matchups and with this data constantly computes the global and national rankings! Winning matchups increases your player rank and losing them costs rank.

Three Battles Per Opponent

Unlike the common Best of 3 format, opponents in the 2019-2020 Season always get three opportunities to battle each other. Each battle is a chance to prove your strength as a competitor. A close match (e.g. losing one battle and winning two) reveals a more even matchup than sweeping victories.

In Season 1, the Arena simply recorded the result of 'Best of 3' matches as a singular win or loss. This season, a loss affects player ranking no differently than in the prior Season, except now competitors who have gone 0-2 will have one more chance to prove the opponents' skill gap was actually narrow - and the leading opponent must prove their sweeping victory was more than luck by repeating their success in a third match.

A competitor may opt to concede this third match if they wish (at no ranking penalty). In the eyes of the Arena an 0-2 match is the same as an 0-3 match - and both affect player rank the exact same way as a simple 'Loss' from Season 1. But that competitor only stands to gain by playing the third match for one extra chance to prove the match was close!

All match victories increase your player rank - and every battle counts!

Opponent Strength

The strength of your opponent affects your potential rank gain or loss in each matchup. If a low-tier competitor defeats a highly-skilled player, the Arena learns that the low-tier competitor is actually much more skilled than expected and their player tier and rank will ascend more quickly than from victories with less-skilled opponents.

Tournament Bracket & Tie-breaking

The winner of the most battles (of the three in each matchup) is marked victor of the matchup in a tournament, and the winner of the most matchups will be crowned the tournament winner!

When ties occur for the highest match wins in a tournament, all top-scoring competitors will receive the highest level trophy awarded for their Trophy Case and are co-victors in the eyes of the Arena. For the sake of local event prizes and glory, however, Tournament organizers may elect to hold additional tie-breaking rounds or to use the provided Buchholz tiebreaker score (which displays the sum of each player's opponents' match wins) and, as a secondary tie-breaker, each competitor's total battle wins. Both numbers are displayed in the tournament point results table.

The Competitive Season: The Path to World Champion

The 2019-2020 Competitive Season begins October 2019 and will feature 10 monthly Cups. Midway through the Season, the strongest competitors in each community will receive an invitation to compete at an exclusive Regional Invitational against the top competitors of other communities in the region. (See the 2020 Regional qualification criteria on the 2020 Regionals Information page.) Victors of these Regional Invitationals will receive a coveted spot at the Continental Championships held in June, July, and August. At the end of the Season, the Continental Champions will come together to see who deserves the title of World Champion!

Communities around the globe will have an opportunity to apply to host their area’s Regional Invitational. The Silph Arena will select from those communities based on a number of factors, including a proven track record of successful, accredited Silph Arena tournaments and a demonstrated capacity to handle hosting a larger, multi-community tournament.

Continental and World Championships will be hosted by the Silph Arena after the Season's Regional Invitationals conclude and Regional Champions have emerged.

Opting Out of Rank

Some competitors may wish to participate in local Arena tournaments but do not wish to appear on leaderboards or have personal Arena Stats displayed on their Travelers Card. Others may be disqualified from global rank eligibility due to having falsified or manipulated their GPS location ('spoofing') or other violations of League rules.

These competitors should select the Opt Out of Rank option from the site navigation and permanently de-rank their account in the Arena.

Unranked players will not appear in global or local leaderboards. They can still, however, be able to earn trophies for their Trophy Case and even win local tournaments.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section will be updated periodically with questions frequently asked about player rank.

Competitor Questions

Are larger tournaments better for my rank?

While playing in large tournaments is not a requirement to earn a Regionals invite, larger tournaments have more rounds, which means more opportunities to compete and battle against other players. Larger tournaments have a higher potential for rewarding points and improving your player rank, but your true rank gains will depend on how well you perform at a larger tournament with steeper competition.

What happens if I leave a Cup early?

Once a tournament you are registered for begins, that Cup will count for your rank (including receiving full weighted rank impact if applicable) as long as the tournament qualifies for rank (e.g. a Cup's final matches have been reported before the end of the Cup's final day and 8+ players complete multiple rounds). Cases where a player might be 'holding the Cup hostage' should be reported with evidence to the Arena team through the Infraction Reporting form.

What happens to my rank if I play an unranked player?

Your rank gains and losses are handled exactly the same as playing against ranked players.

Tournament Organizer Questions

What happens if I forget to mark our tournament 'Concluded' before the end of the month?

Tournaments auto-conclude at the end of month if a Tournament Organizer forgets to mark them 'Concluded.' However, if not all match results are reported in by that time, the tournament will not qualify for rank.

Do communities have to accept known cheaters or unranked players at a tournament?

Community leaders do not have to admit competitors who violate their own community's rules. Cups or ranked tournaments are not required to be open invite (though this is strongly encouraged in the spirit of the Arena). However, officials may not bar competitors based on race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, or other similar attributes. Additionally, officials may not exclude or include competitors or groups of competitors in any attempt to manipulate or influence match or tournament outcomes, player rank, or leaderboards. Evidence of discrimination, attempts at match-fixing, or any other violations are taken very seriously and all evidence and information should be submitted via the Report Misconduct form to be reviewed by the Arena Team.

If you have evidence of a competitor or League community intentionally violating, abusing, or manipulating Arena rules and protocol, all evidence and information should be submitted via the Report Misconduct form to be reviewed by the Arena Team.