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Fighting Game Ladders and Elo Rankings on Discord

Rate the set, not the game — best-of series, stage striking and counterpick bans.

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Fighting game communities have been running first-to-3 sets since long before anyone put a bot in the room, and there is a good reason the convention survived: a single game is close to noise. Character matchups swing hard, one read decides a round, and the player who takes game one loses the set more often than the scoreline suggests. Everyone in the FGC already knows a single game does not settle anything — which is why a ladder that rates individual games ends up disagreeing with what the room saw.

So rate the set. One rating change per first-to-3, not three of them. This is a configuration decision rather than a philosophical one, and it is the single most consequential setting on a fighting game ladder.

The other thing fighting games need that other genres do not is stage handling. Striking down from the starters, then winner-bans-loser-picks between games, is a format with real competitive weight in Smash and its relatives — and it is a format Team Up implements directly rather than approximating with a map vote.

Setting up a Fighting Games leaderboard

The decisions that are specific to Fighting Games. Everything else follows the general setup guide.

  1. 1

    Set the competitive format to a series

    Set the queue's competitive format to best-of-3 or best-of-5. Ratings then move once per series, on the series result, which is what the room already believes happened. Leaving it on single-match and calling each game a match is the default and it is the wrong default for this genre.

  2. 2

    Stage striking, properly

    Two strategies exist specifically for this. Stage Striking runs the alternating 1-2-2-1 ban down to a game-one stage. Smash Striking extends it across the set — strike for game one, then winner bans three and loser picks for every game after. Set your starters and counterpicks as the pool and the veto runs itself.

  3. 3

    Counterpick as a first-class step

    Stage Striking Counterpick is the variant where the winner bans and the loser picks between games, which is the rule most brackets you have entered actually use. If your community runs it at locals, run it in the queue — matching the offline ruleset is worth more than any convenience the simpler formats buy.

  4. 4

    Rate players at 1v1

    Player (Specific Format) at 1v1. Doubles, if you run it, deserves its own leaderboard rather than a second rating type on the same one — the populations barely overlap and the skills genuinely differ.

  5. 5

    Characters are a choice worth tracking

    If your community argues about character-specific skill — and it does — the Player Choices rating type lets a player carry separate ratings for the characters they queue with. This is optional and adds real setup cost; it is worth it for a community with committed secondaries and not worth it for one where everyone has a main.

Commands you'll use

/queue_versus Create a versus queue or lobby launcher/record_match Record match results and update player ratings/tournaments Tournament schedule and live tournament messages/challenge Challenge another player to a 1v1 match

Fighting Games leagues on Team Up

Public communities running Fighting Games rankings right now. Anyone can join.

Fighting Games guides

Fighting Game Ladders: Rate the Set, Not the Game

In the FGC the unit of a result is a set, not a game — and rating games individually double-counts one observation, makes your ladder's volatility depend on the tournament format, and breaks character stats. Here's how to build a ladder that fits how the FGC actually plays.

12 min read

Fighting Games on Discord — FAQ

The questions communities ask before setting up a Fighting Games ladder.

Ready to rank your Fighting Games community?

Team Up is free to start. Add the bot, create a leaderboard, and record your first match — the ladder builds itself from there.

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