30 For 30 Power Rankings: The Strongest Seasons in Pro History

By MartyB
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​THL’s 30 for 30 series represents a fun opportunity for us to compare players across history. Typically, we’re focused on a single season or lifetime, but we rarely return to specific seasons to measure player success. Fortunately, PAR now allows us to look back on individual seasons and rank them in ways that we were never able to before.

For this piece, Seasons 1 and Kappa are omitted. These two seasons featured Specialist format, where players brought only one deck for best-of-3 matchups. Points were more valuable during these seasons, making them incompatible with our comparisons. The different format also makes it difficult to translate performance to the rest of Pro’s history. As was the case last time, we’ll also be including playoff matches, as lifetime PAR includes all matches someone plays in a season.

Honorable Mentions:
RonMexico, Season 3: 10-3 (34-21), 12.413 PAR

McBanterface, Season 9: 8-0 (24-8), 12.441 PAR

AgentPWE, Season 14: 9-1 (29-12), 12.811 PAR

gle, Season 8: 8-0 (24-9), 13.027 PAR

DankestDad, Season 9: 8-0 (24-11), 13.794

Several of the players in our Honorable Mentions suffer from shorter seasons than those we see in our top 10. Three of them—McBanterface, gle, and DankestDad—all managed to go undefeated during their respective seasons. Unfortunately for them, they all played only 8 matches each, the lowest totals featured in our rankings. For gle specifically, their season was cut short by their team missing playoffs entirely. It’s a testament to how reaching the top of these power rankings requires both a strong individual season and a team poised for a playoff run.

10: McBanterface, Season 10
Match Record: 9-1
Game Record: 28-15
PAR: 13.970

McBanterface is considered by some to be the greatest Pro Series player in THL history. It’s only natural for him to show up on this list. His best season didn’t feature a championship win, but he did manage a 90% match win rate. Not bad for a Hearthstone Grandmaster (and better than any season PocketTrain had, which is all that really matters).
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9:  CmaccompH, Season 3
Match Record: 11-2
Game Record: 36-21
PAR: 14.817

Cmac led his team with an absurd 11-2 record to a championship back in Season 3. Although they’re primarily known for their Hero Series play, this THL regular has shown that they can carry their team to a championship in any series.
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8: LiquidOx, Season 6
Match Record: 10-0
Game Record: 30-13
PAR: 15.140

Normally, this blurb would discuss LiquidOx’s time in THL and highlights in his undefeated season. This isn’t a normal season to highlight though. It’s prototypically LiquidOx.

Ox wasn’t known for being a very accountable player in THL. He was young and good at Hearthstone, but never the most responsible person. Ox would regularly forget deadlines, asking The Board to input his match scores after missing the deadline to do so the prior week. This also impacted his lineups. Season 6 was the pinnacle of this.

For 7 straight weeks, Ox brought the same lineup to his match. Several of the decks were nerfed to oblivion, turning his lineup into a compilation of has-beens by the midway point of the season. That didn’t matter. His season record speaks for itself.

7: Wild9, Season 12
Match Record: 9-0
Game Record: 27-14
PAR: 15.181

Wild9 is always a sleeper in Pro series, typically holding their own as a strong 1 seed without gaining much attention throughout the season. His Season 12 performance, though, shouldn’t be slept on. 

Under Wild9’s dominance, Cheese Mongers United went undefeated to the finals. Wild9 would cap off the season with a 3-2 victory over PocketTrain, who would go on to win the World Championship themselves later that year. A fitting final match for an incredible season.
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6: MartyB, Season 11
Match Record: 9-1
Game Record: 29-15
PAR: 15.249

Hey, that’s me! Did you really expect me to not take the opportunity to write about myself?

Jokes aside, this season was a fortunate one for me. F2L’s playoffs were entirely decided by the core F2L members: rebobson, Itachi, and I. The three of us collectively went 9-1 in our playoff matches, securing a championship with support from Diamond and Dabs, “Bobby 6 Set.” The win marked F2L’s first championship since Pro Season 2, a team rebob and Itachi were also a part of.
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5: GermanShep, Season 5
Match Record: 11-2
Game Record: 35-19
PAR: 15.656

Shep has been a strong performer in Pro Series for years. Their career highlight comes from season 5, when they secured a championship as the 1 seed for For The Boys. 

GermanShep’s play was mostly overshadowed in the regular season, but they make the list thanks to their undefeated play in the postseason. A 75% game win rate in the playoffs is nothing to scoff at on its own, but doing it against fellow 1 seeds makes the accomplishment special.
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​4: Flamekilla, Season 5
Match Record: 10-0
Game Record: 30-13
PAR: 16.010

GermanShep’s record in season 5 was great, but it falls short to Flamekilla’s undefeated regular season performance. ATK mode missed playoffs this season, making Flamekilla’s record entirely confined to the regular season. What’s more impressive is that no other player this season managed to string together an undefeated season after the first two weeks. It was arguably one of the most competitive seasons in Pro Series to date.
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3: Oofrick, Season 6
Match Record: 10-1
Game Record: 32-16
PAR: 16.078

Most players on this list spent a majority of the season in the 1 seed. Not Oofrick. Their teammates “sheltered” them for more than half of the season, forcing Oofrick to play most of their matches in the 2 seed. Despite this, they actually faced tougher opponents than their peers (Oofrick’s opponent game win rate was 56.76% vs MMW’s 53.18%. MMW spent most of the season as the 1 seed for Washed Tappers). It’s an unusual way to achieve a historic season, but the team managed to win a championship in the process, so everything worked out.
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2: SuperChicken, Season 8
Match Record: 10-1
Game Record: 32-13
PAR: 16.305

Our second performance from a For The Boys player comes from SuperChicken in Season 8. Diamond and Co. were led by SuperChicken to another impressive championship season. The series win capped off an insane multi-season run for the Diamond-led club.
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1: BuckNastyZB, Season 4
Match Record: 11-1
Game Record: 35-14
PAR: 17.642

Somehow, up to this point, we still haven’t seen the most impressive performance from a Diamond team. That award goes to BuckNastyZB, who led For The Boys in the 1 seed back in Season 4. 

BuckNastyZB’s opponents had nearly a 57% game win rate. Usually, the best players will manage to win 60% of their matches with a schedule this difficult. Not BuckNastyZB. They scored an absurd 71% game win rate with much of the season taking place with them in the 1 seed.

The only thing that kept BuckNastyZB from having an even more insane record was For The Boys falling one point short of making the finals. The team lost a tiebreaker in the semis to F2L, who would face the eventual championship team HypeHorizon the following week.
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