Arguing that there should be a bonus for winning and then also saying Sonix should be ranked higher than 5th seems like a contradictary take. There's a publically available document explaining how the Lumirank works in excruciating details, and it's updated when changes are made from one season to another, and these changes are made according to player feedback. Like I really don't know what people in this community want from them.
Personally I think head to heads rewards players for their character pool. The difference between playing a hard counter to what top players use, vs the opposite of that is enormous. It's also frustrating to see players get penalized for having higher attendance, to the point that they are ranked lower than players with half as many majors and supermajors under their belt.
@@nathanlevesque7812 Character pick impacts every stat, you can't do much about that. Players are penalized for attending few events. Acola lost several points in 2024.1 for going to so few tournaments. Sonix lost several points in 2024.2 for the same reason.
glad the comments are mostly on the same page about 2023 spargo acola at least 😂 spargoat deserves all the love now but he was not the “obvious best player” for that year
I agree very strongly with what Pink was saying about how difficult it is to win a supermajor. Consistency is important, but supermajor wins should simply be valued higher, generally speaking. I think you should get a certain amount of bonus points for the rankings on top of the tournament points/player wins if you win a supermajor (or some kind of multiplier to make sure different levels of supermajor are valued properly? Not sure what would work best). We’ve seen amazing players struggle to win again and again. That really says something about the few (and it is only a *few*) players who can actually do it, and do it every season.
Winning a tournament is a more important demonstration of 'consistency'. Having to just win, period, until you are the only person who hasn't lost twice, is peak consistency.
@@peashooter6628 I mean, there were only 3. And Sparg0 won both of the NA supermajors he attended(Supernova, Riptide) but failed to win the one Japanese supermajor he attended(Kowloon Kagaribi). Finally, Miya won the biggest non-supermajor major of the season in NA(Cirque).
The main issue I have with the whole "If I get X amount of top players in a room, who's going to win?" is how certain matchups matter a ton more in a game like ultimate, in that situation I want Sparg0 to win, but I know there's a few that may not win but will give him a run for his money, that he could easily lose to, like Leo, Tweek and Light for example. Yes I can trust Sparg0 taking on most of not every single japanese player out, but he may lose before that, because that's what has happened before, we would need to get all top 100 players and make them do a round robin to determine the best player, but that's simply not possible. Another example is Leo, in an era where he was the undisputed king of smash, Shuton, Kameme and Proto gave him trouble, so winning a tournament depends on him not running into either of those two, even his legendary EVO run was after he was defeated by Kameme very early and sent into losers where he just destroyed everyone, but I'm 100% sure that if he had a runback with Kameme in that tourney, he would've been double eliminated by him, It's one of the few times I saw Leo actually look lost in a matchup. So no matter how much we figure a system or how we see it, rankings are a flawed concept, but we have such a love and hate relationship with stats, one thing I do agree with tho, is the fact that winning a supermajor should have more weight than it does, but if it did, NA and EU will never be able to compete with JP, because of how many supermajors they have, so that'd be another issue.
This argument of "if you put all the players in a tournament, who has the greatest chance of winning" to justify Spargo ranking 1 over Acola that year based on heads to heads is so biased and bad. That year Acola was clearly better, and no matter how much Acola lost to Spargo, in a hypothetical tournament, Acola would be in the grand final, but Sparg0 could simply suffer an upset to Skyjay or Yaura or Glutto, as he suffered several that season.
Yeah I think something people also need to ask themselves is if Acola and Spargo's records were completely switched that season where Spargo had the consistency and Acola had the dominant head-to-head, and Acola was #2 and Spargo was #1, would there be such a public outcry? Realistically I doubt it. So much of that was due to Spargo having a huge fanbase and Acola playing Steve. I would hope people would be able to stay consistent with their criticisms of the ranking, but that's probably too much to as for.
I think you're overstresssing Sparg0's ability to get upset when it was the close year. That's why it was a good argument because yes Acola wasn't losing to anyone else except Sparg0 (& Sonix, though I dont think we knew that at the time), but Sparg0 was very rarely getting upset either. To put it this way he was statistically way more likely to make it to grands and upset Acola, than he was to get upset before then. Thats why it was honestly a very solid argument, because statistically it was pretty overwhelmingly true Sparg0 would win the Super duper omega major that year if one was held. Because Acola was basically guaranteed to lose to Sparg0 and there was definitely less than a 50% chance of Sparg0 getting upseted before making it to grands
@@danielli5195I think you're underselling those who made that argument for the close year. From what I remember almost every tournament Sparg0 and Acola entered together Sparg0 won, and Sparg0 was pretty consistent too. It was basically like asking what if these two players weren't region locked, who statistically wouod win more and that was Sparg0 at the time. I would agree with consistency over H2Hs if region lock wasn't upholding the consistency
Sparg0 is so talented. Not only did he finally become the number 1 player, he won LMBM and got 2nd place in Rivals with like less than a month's worth of experience. This guy is a different breed 😂. Anyways, congrats on doing well on LMBM Tweek even though you didn't get the W this time. You did great!
Now that the game is nearing its "end", don't you guys think it would be good to make a TRUE BEST PLAYER tournament, where you take the top 16 or top 20 from the latest ranking, and let them all face each other once each? This is how European sports often do it, that there are no semifinals or finals, just a straight table, and I think it's the fairest way to determine who's truly the best. It would be really hype in my opinion, and all games would matter, and there's no bracket luck involved!
Haz that's totally wrong. The best player is who wins the biggest tournaments. Spargo wasn't winning the biggest events that year. It was always "Acola is the favorite to win, unless Spargo gets to him". That's just called having a bracket demon, not someone being a better player. It's like in smash 4 how everyone knew Leo could beat Zero, but then Leo would lose Muteace at evo. Charles is right tho. The algorithm being transparent would help a lot. Like I understand why Zackary was just an honorable mention, but there were other players that didn't compete too many more times as him, on average performed worse, and were still ranked. If they would've given him 20th, everyone would've understood why.
I don't think transparency is the issue, the people involved in Lumirank discuss how the rankings work and why all over social media. Just not enough smash players/viewers paying attention.
Lumirank told everyone exactly what were the requirements to get ranked. Zackray was one event away from being ranked. He probably made that choice deliberately.
"Sparg0 wasnt winning the biggest events that year". Statistically not true. In any tournament Sparg0 & Acola entered, Sparg0 won 3, Acola won 2 tournaments in 2023. Statistically Sparg0 was 60% likely to make it to grands at any tournament (12/20), and 100% likely to beat Acola (6-0). Sparg0 was just statistically way more likely to win any tournament him & Acola entered that year, and I would say the biggest events were ones where both Sparg0 & Acola participated. Sparg0's top 3 placements were also 2 P tiers and a S tier. Acola's top 3 was 1 P tier, 1 S+, and 1 A+. Acola also had a 100% losing record against #3 Sonix, though not aa high a set count as Sparg0 (0-2). And Sparg0 had a winning set count against Sonix of (9-6). No matter how you dice it, Sparg0 was significantly more likely to win any tournament they both entered
Charles spitting at 15:05 let everyone know to help them make decisions
15 วันที่ผ่านมา +1
Agree completely! This is such an important point that should spread around way more. If you're being ranked you should know how you're being measured. Period. Will players try to "game" the systemO? Well yes, probably, but if you value the right things, then there should be no problem.
Dude, LumiRank has a whole public document explaining in simple terms how they calculate. I'm so sick of top players making criticism based on ignorance, despite the fact that they are THE people who should care about understanding it. Unless they don't care about the ranking (many tops say they don't) and in that case why even bother commenting on it?
15:34 they do though. Luminosity literally posts exactly how the algorithm is calculated every season. Players would rather bitch about it than take the 10 mins to read
44:47 This is so true, and also one of the reasons I think Leo has experienced success against Sparg0. He's immune to that sort of aura, because he used to be that guy. He knows it's always winnable, everyone has habits that can be exploited, no one is invincible.
And also Leo has been playing with Sparg0 earlier than most of the other top players, so he played before he had the aura. Throwback to Summit 3 Leo saying that Sparg0 will become the best and surpass him one day.
@@80espiay Not saying it for tourism, saying it for smash. If its for tourism and you want to enjoy Japan the fall is probably best. Not too hot, not too crowded
@@Uran10 for Smash you right, and I also feel like I might as well want to enjoy the visit to its fullest after spending thousands of dollars to travel there as well
The top 20 players should each play a first to 50 (first to 10, 5 days in a row) against each other. Spend the year collecting this data. That would be a better performance indicator. Preferably not on wifi. Lol. I get this is unrealistic...but it would be a better metric imo.
@Nouser_237 exactly i get it Leo was great at some point for a while but that time has loooooong past. He makes it's out of pools and commentator acts like he going to win every tournament. No disrespect to Leo but it's disrespect to other players
@@matthewgriffin7763 I mean, outside of Supernova, MKLeo hasn’t missed top 5 of an event and all of his losses are from top 20 players but, as they said in the podcast, winning a major let alone a supermajor feels like it gets less credit than it deserves
glad i’m not insane and pink agrees tweek is lowkey the best player 😂 for me personally it’s back and forth between sparg0 and tweek in terms of raw skill, not wins or placements
Cool! I like talking about skill more than results bc idk its more fun and interesting lol, my top 5 most skilled players (based on my understanding/misunderstanding of the game…) Protobanham (lol, my 🐐), Sparg0, Asimo, Sonix, Light
The people justifying Acola #1 in 2023 are so ridiculous, Sparg0 not only had consistency against Acola, he also had consistency against the entire world top 5. While Acola from the top 5 in the world only had consistency against Glutto. lmao Watch the throne was the clearest proof of that. In addition, Sparg0 won Majors in the USA, CAN, MX, JPN, only the EU was missing, Acola only won Majors in JPN and the USA in all of 2023. If we have 2 clear competitors for the #1 position it is obvious that it is decided in a face to face, and clearly Sparg0 6 - 0 Acola
Sparg0's record vs top 100: 78-28 Acola's record vs top 100: 94-17 Sparg0's worst placement: 49th, at Smash Con Acola's worst placement: 7th, at Genesis Number of times Sparg0 missed top 8: 3 (49th at Smash Con, 9th at Crown, 17th at Port Priority) Number of times Acola missed top 8: 0 (in fact, he only placed below top 3 *twice*, with 7th at Genesis and 4th at WTT) Obviously Sparg0 will look better if you go out of your way to only choose the stats that favour him (which there are, because it was close). The reality is that there are well-founded arguments for both of them, and that's why they were close, and also why rankings are difficult.
The mid year season was the only one that was actually close between Sparg0 and Acola. And during that season, Acola didn't play Sonix, had a 2-1 record against Miya and a 2-0 record against Tweek, while Sparg0 had a 2-2 record against Sonix, 1-0 against Miya and 1-2 against Tweek. So, there, he didn't do better against the rest of the top 5 than Acola. For the full year ranking, it's possible Sparg0 wouldn't even have been 2nd in the world if it wasn't for his amazing first half of the year, cause he was simply too inconsistent with too many meh losses and placements. Unless I'm forgetting something, Acola had one loss outside of the top 4 in the second half of the year(to Hurt). Who cares if your record against the rest of the top 4 isn't the best if you're almost never losing to anyone else.
Only thing sparg0 had above acola In 2023 was the h2h, acola had more wins, was more consistent and a better record vs top 100. Where you win your major is irrelevant, its the tiering of the tournaments that matter.
Arguing that there should be a bonus for winning and then also saying Sonix should be ranked higher than 5th seems like a contradictary take.
There's a publically available document explaining how the Lumirank works in excruciating details, and it's updated when changes are made from one season to another, and these changes are made according to player feedback. Like I really don't know what people in this community want from them.
Consistency.
@@gerardomendoza4410 Did you only read the last sentence of the entire comment. What do you want to have that actually makes sense as a solution.
Personally I think head to heads rewards players for their character pool. The difference between playing a hard counter to what top players use, vs the opposite of that is enormous. It's also frustrating to see players get penalized for having higher attendance, to the point that they are ranked lower than players with half as many majors and supermajors under their belt.
@@nathanlevesque7812 Character pick impacts every stat, you can't do much about that.
Players are penalized for attending few events. Acola lost several points in 2024.1 for going to so few tournaments. Sonix lost several points in 2024.2 for the same reason.
They're just continuing to give more feedback for the next update
34:27 "I WILL NEVER. EVER! LOSE TO KIRBY! EVER!"
Favorite moment of the podcast! 😂TY guys so much as always 🧡
glad the comments are mostly on the same page about 2023 spargo acola at least 😂 spargoat deserves all the love now but he was not the “obvious best player” for that year
I agree very strongly with what Pink was saying about how difficult it is to win a supermajor. Consistency is important, but supermajor wins should simply be valued higher, generally speaking. I think you should get a certain amount of bonus points for the rankings on top of the tournament points/player wins if you win a supermajor (or some kind of multiplier to make sure different levels of supermajor are valued properly? Not sure what would work best).
We’ve seen amazing players struggle to win again and again. That really says something about the few (and it is only a *few*) players who can actually do it, and do it every season.
Feel like japan would'nt have to travel if wins were weighed heavier since they have it more often.
This would benefit Acola/Miya. They farm supermajors for breakfast lol
Winning a tournament is a more important demonstration of 'consistency'. Having to just win, period, until you are the only person who hasn't lost twice, is peak consistency.
@@trombonegamer14interesting how none of the Japanese players won a supermajor in the US this season though
@@peashooter6628 I mean, there were only 3. And Sparg0 won both of the NA supermajors he attended(Supernova, Riptide) but failed to win the one Japanese supermajor he attended(Kowloon Kagaribi). Finally, Miya won the biggest non-supermajor major of the season in NA(Cirque).
The main issue I have with the whole "If I get X amount of top players in a room, who's going to win?" is how certain matchups matter a ton more in a game like ultimate, in that situation I want Sparg0 to win, but I know there's a few that may not win but will give him a run for his money, that he could easily lose to, like Leo, Tweek and Light for example.
Yes I can trust Sparg0 taking on most of not every single japanese player out, but he may lose before that, because that's what has happened before, we would need to get all top 100 players and make them do a round robin to determine the best player, but that's simply not possible.
Another example is Leo, in an era where he was the undisputed king of smash, Shuton, Kameme and Proto gave him trouble, so winning a tournament depends on him not running into either of those two, even his legendary EVO run was after he was defeated by Kameme very early and sent into losers where he just destroyed everyone, but I'm 100% sure that if he had a runback with Kameme in that tourney, he would've been double eliminated by him, It's one of the few times I saw Leo actually look lost in a matchup.
So no matter how much we figure a system or how we see it, rankings are a flawed concept, but we have such a love and hate relationship with stats, one thing I do agree with tho, is the fact that winning a supermajor should have more weight than it does, but if it did, NA and EU will never be able to compete with JP, because of how many supermajors they have, so that'd be another issue.
Tournaments are an endurance sport. The 'top players in a room' thing is like valuing invitationals over open brackets.
This argument of "if you put all the players in a tournament, who has the greatest chance of winning" to justify Spargo ranking 1 over Acola that year based on heads to heads is so biased and bad. That year Acola was clearly better, and no matter how much Acola lost to Spargo, in a hypothetical tournament, Acola would be in the grand final, but Sparg0 could simply suffer an upset to Skyjay or Yaura or Glutto, as he suffered several that season.
I think just counting head to heads would be better, whoever wins the most would be pretty easy to track.
Yeah I think something people also need to ask themselves is if Acola and Spargo's records were completely switched that season where Spargo had the consistency and Acola had the dominant head-to-head, and Acola was #2 and Spargo was #1, would there be such a public outcry? Realistically I doubt it. So much of that was due to Spargo having a huge fanbase and Acola playing Steve. I would hope people would be able to stay consistent with their criticisms of the ranking, but that's probably too much to as for.
I think you're overstresssing Sparg0's ability to get upset when it was the close year. That's why it was a good argument because yes Acola wasn't losing to anyone else except Sparg0 (& Sonix, though I dont think we knew that at the time), but Sparg0 was very rarely getting upset either. To put it this way he was statistically way more likely to make it to grands and upset Acola, than he was to get upset before then. Thats why it was honestly a very solid argument, because statistically it was pretty overwhelmingly true Sparg0 would win the Super duper omega major that year if one was held. Because Acola was basically guaranteed to lose to Sparg0 and there was definitely less than a 50% chance of Sparg0 getting upseted before making it to grands
@@danielli5195I think you're underselling those who made that argument for the close year. From what I remember almost every tournament Sparg0 and Acola entered together Sparg0 won, and Sparg0 was pretty consistent too. It was basically like asking what if these two players weren't region locked, who statistically wouod win more and that was Sparg0 at the time. I would agree with consistency over H2Hs if region lock wasn't upholding the consistency
Totally agree.
Sparg0 is so talented. Not only did he finally become the number 1 player, he won LMBM and got 2nd place in Rivals with like less than a month's worth of experience. This guy is a different breed 😂. Anyways, congrats on doing well on LMBM Tweek even though you didn't get the W this time. You did great!
Hurt beat spargo the first time specifically by dash attacking landings. Hurt is the only player to ever punish spargo for landing
Granted snakes dash attack covers like half the stage 😭
Now that the game is nearing its "end", don't you guys think it would be good to make a TRUE BEST PLAYER tournament, where you take the top 16 or top 20 from the latest ranking, and let them all face each other once each? This is how European sports often do it, that there are no semifinals or finals, just a straight table, and I think it's the fairest way to determine who's truly the best.
It would be really hype in my opinion, and all games would matter, and there's no bracket luck involved!
Like Sumo wrestling
Fun fact: Mkleo reversed 3-0 Tweek 5(!) times in Ultimate.
Becoming a real big fan of tweek. Especially w his more consistent wins. He always clutches up and thats my fav part of his game. Keep winnin tweek.
That boy nice (Tweek, Sparg0, Leo)
Haz that's totally wrong. The best player is who wins the biggest tournaments. Spargo wasn't winning the biggest events that year. It was always "Acola is the favorite to win, unless Spargo gets to him". That's just called having a bracket demon, not someone being a better player.
It's like in smash 4 how everyone knew Leo could beat Zero, but then Leo would lose Muteace at evo.
Charles is right tho. The algorithm being transparent would help a lot. Like I understand why Zackary was just an honorable mention, but there were other players that didn't compete too many more times as him, on average performed worse, and were still ranked. If they would've given him 20th, everyone would've understood why.
I don't think transparency is the issue, the people involved in Lumirank discuss how the rankings work and why all over social media. Just not enough smash players/viewers paying attention.
Opens with “you’re wrong” haha off to a good start
Lumirank told everyone exactly what were the requirements to get ranked. Zackray was one event away from being ranked. He probably made that choice deliberately.
If you are HM being from japan or tristate is your own fault. Theres a lot of events happenig during the year to just end up missing getting ranked
"Sparg0 wasnt winning the biggest events that year". Statistically not true. In any tournament Sparg0 & Acola entered, Sparg0 won 3, Acola won 2 tournaments in 2023. Statistically Sparg0 was 60% likely to make it to grands at any tournament (12/20), and 100% likely to beat Acola (6-0). Sparg0 was just statistically way more likely to win any tournament him & Acola entered that year, and I would say the biggest events were ones where both Sparg0 & Acola participated.
Sparg0's top 3 placements were also 2 P tiers and a S tier. Acola's top 3 was 1 P tier, 1 S+, and 1 A+. Acola also had a 100% losing record against #3 Sonix, though not aa high a set count as Sparg0 (0-2). And Sparg0 had a winning set count against Sonix of (9-6). No matter how you dice it, Sparg0 was significantly more likely to win any tournament they both entered
Leo plays too unsure agaisnt Tweek, respects him more than any other player to his detriment imo
I love how everyone else is at least somewhat centered on their facecam, except Markus, who's just lurking the the bottom left
Charles spitting at 15:05 let everyone know to help them make decisions
Agree completely! This is such an important point that should spread around way more. If you're being ranked you should know how you're being measured. Period. Will players try to "game" the systemO? Well yes, probably, but if you value the right things, then there should be no problem.
Dude, LumiRank has a whole public document explaining in simple terms how they calculate. I'm so sick of top players making criticism based on ignorance, despite the fact that they are THE people who should care about understanding it. Unless they don't care about the ranking (many tops say they don't) and in that case why even bother commenting on it?
Funny listening to Chuck's snow story while I'm stuck here at the airport waiting for my flight that's been delayed 5 hours due to snow
9:07 but that's the point. The numbers were NOT equal. Sparg0 objectively did considerably worse than Acola that season overall.
15:34 they do though. Luminosity literally posts exactly how the algorithm is calculated every season. Players would rather bitch about it than take the 10 mins to read
44:47
This is so true, and also one of the reasons I think Leo has experienced success against Sparg0. He's immune to that sort of aura, because he used to be that guy. He knows it's always winnable, everyone has habits that can be exploited, no one is invincible.
And also Leo has been playing with Sparg0 earlier than most of the other top players, so he played before he had the aura. Throwback to Summit 3 Leo saying that Sparg0 will become the best and surpass him one day.
Wait so, the only two NA players in the top 10, both lost to two other NA players? That's....something.
Stango is so good and spargos performance over him and even boiko proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that spargo is THE swordsmaster of smash
Happy New Year !!!!!! 🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊🎊
Nah, you need to go for golden week...
Apparently you avoid going around that time because it’s so crowded
@@80espiay it's true, it's the worst time to go as a tourist
@@80espiay Not saying it for tourism, saying it for smash. If its for tourism and you want to enjoy Japan the fall is probably best. Not too hot, not too crowded
@@Uran10 for Smash you right, and I also feel like I might as well want to enjoy the visit to its fullest after spending thousands of dollars to travel there as well
pinkfresh looks like stanley from the office
Wym
The top 20 players should each play a first to 50 (first to 10, 5 days in a row) against each other. Spend the year collecting this data. That would be a better performance indicator. Preferably not on wifi. Lol. I get this is unrealistic...but it would be a better metric imo.
Wednesdays are so back!!!
Smash second (first?) greatest rivalry will be set one day before the next game 😂
we missed u!!
ALGORITHM
You won't win against syrup anymore without Sephiroth
Tweek being 10 over Leo (to me) is kinda bonkers
Leo was ranked above Asimo as well
@Nouser_237 exactly i get it Leo was great at some point for a while but that time has loooooong past. He makes it's out of pools and commentator acts like he going to win every tournament. No disrespect to Leo but it's disrespect to other players
@@matthewgriffin7763 I mean, outside of Supernova, MKLeo hasn’t missed top 5 of an event and all of his losses are from top 20 players but, as they said in the podcast, winning a major let alone a supermajor feels like it gets less credit than it deserves
LMAO 34:27
glad i’m not insane and pink agrees tweek is lowkey the best player 😂 for me personally it’s back and forth between sparg0 and tweek in terms of raw skill, not wins or placements
Cool! I like talking about skill more than results bc idk its more fun and interesting lol, my top 5 most skilled players (based on my understanding/misunderstanding of the game…)
Protobanham (lol, my 🐐), Sparg0, Asimo, Sonix, Light
@ dude proto was soooo sick he’s definitely the player i miss the most his lucina was otherworldly. really interesting top 5!
Haz hating on Acola hella hard bruh. That shit is lame 👎👎👎
shut up bro
Many top players do. Light, spargo and leo too.
Because Steve is mickey. Spargo the goat 🤪
@@alexmartin6561 None of them hate acola lol, they hate Steve but any statements to the players are jokes
Timestamp please
Tweek please pick up a Steve secondary
tweek and leo not playing again in ult would be hilarious
Tweek not beating the allegations he can only win supermajors if steve banned
He won GOML last year with Steve being legal.
@@rich7103didn't face any Steve's luckily for him
@@rich7103 And in fact beat syrup in top 8 if I remember right.
@@abduleshabbar9223Yep
Also got double eliminated in a tournament by steve only reason he won the past luminosity tournaments was cause steve ban@rich7103
Comments not happy 💀 we all know sparg0 has been the best for the last few years, glad he finally proved it
This episode was kinda obnoxious ngl.
How?
Dude what
This was a really good ep ngl
ngl this comment is really obnoxious
No views or comments in 15 seconds? Psh. Bro fell off.
Yeeaahhh top 10 is a mess.
The people justifying Acola #1 in 2023 are so ridiculous, Sparg0 not only had consistency against Acola, he also had consistency against the entire world top 5. While Acola from the top 5 in the world only had consistency against Glutto. lmao Watch the throne was the clearest proof of that. In addition, Sparg0 won Majors in the USA, CAN, MX, JPN, only the EU was missing, Acola only won Majors in JPN and the USA in all of 2023. If we have 2 clear competitors for the #1 position it is obvious that it is decided in a face to face, and clearly Sparg0 6 - 0 Acola
Sparg0's record vs top 100: 78-28
Acola's record vs top 100: 94-17
Sparg0's worst placement: 49th, at Smash Con
Acola's worst placement: 7th, at Genesis
Number of times Sparg0 missed top 8: 3 (49th at Smash Con, 9th at Crown, 17th at Port Priority)
Number of times Acola missed top 8: 0 (in fact, he only placed below top 3 *twice*, with 7th at Genesis and 4th at WTT)
Obviously Sparg0 will look better if you go out of your way to only choose the stats that favour him (which there are, because it was close). The reality is that there are well-founded arguments for both of them, and that's why they were close, and also why rankings are difficult.
we just making up new arbitrary metrics now wtf is "number of unique places where youve won majors"
The mid year season was the only one that was actually close between Sparg0 and Acola. And during that season, Acola didn't play Sonix, had a 2-1 record against Miya and a 2-0 record against Tweek, while Sparg0 had a 2-2 record against Sonix, 1-0 against Miya and 1-2 against Tweek. So, there, he didn't do better against the rest of the top 5 than Acola.
For the full year ranking, it's possible Sparg0 wouldn't even have been 2nd in the world if it wasn't for his amazing first half of the year, cause he was simply too inconsistent with too many meh losses and placements. Unless I'm forgetting something, Acola had one loss outside of the top 4 in the second half of the year(to Hurt). Who cares if your record against the rest of the top 4 isn't the best if you're almost never losing to anyone else.
Only thing sparg0 had above acola In 2023 was the h2h, acola had more wins, was more consistent and a better record vs top 100. Where you win your major is irrelevant, its the tiering of the tournaments that matter.
Acola was clearly better
Maybe Battle of BC?