power rankings week 5 (Dark Beyond)

Introduction

WELCOME BACK TO THL POWER RANKINGS! Same crew, with the addition of the fabulous EPICat, same formulas, slick new visuals. As a reminder, we use internal data calculated into a formula called PAR to create these rankings. PAR calculates data such as win/loss, game win rates, and strength of schedule. Each week we will be updating you on how these players and teams shift throughout their respective series, as well as highlighting individuals and their journeys. Let’s venture out into the Dark Beyond.

legacy

We’re halfway through the Legacy regular season, with some clear teams moving towards the top of our power rankings! Only two undefeated teams remain, 7 Mile Spanking Machine and Defias. An undefeated season for them would involve taking down fellow top ranked teams Do A Barrel Roll and DadLegend, respectively. Speaking of DadLegend, our current highest points holder across all series, they narrowly lost out on the coveted strongest team position to the Golden Wisps, a team they beat in week 1 and are fighting for the upper seed in the Legacy Blue Conference with. Blue Conference is putting on quite a competitive show, with an average of 59.4 points or 14.85 PPW across all teams within (that’s more than some of the teams on this top 10 list!). This high average is mostly due to the top ranked teams, Golden Wisps and DadLegend, taking 23 point weeks in their out-of-conference matches. Next week, I expect to see some serious shifts after the top 10 team matchups of Los Justin Hermanos vs The Ceaseless Expanse Ate Our Team, Do A Barrel Roll vs Anomaly Perplexed Me?, and DadLegend vs 8 Handed Death Chop ends up shaking out. 

Looking at our players, there’s a total of eleven people still with undefeated records 4 weeks in! (Honorable mentions to DragonRider, Potwasher, TwoStarMako, and ElectricSheepCity who were not viewed favorably enough by PAR to make the list but have played three or more matches and are also undefeated!) The list is headed by grumpyninja with an incredible 12-3 record so far, including two clean conquest sweeps. LtCavalry follows close behind with a 12-6 game score, followed by the top two seeds of DadLegend, KingViking23 and Halohalo. Extra shoutout to Jett for refusing to bring Shaman so far this season (all other top 10 players brought it every week) and breaking the meta a little! For next week, I’m looking forward to seeing how many of these undefeated players can retain their position on the list. oxob3333 and ElectricSheepCity’s faceoff will surely remove one of them, but winning every Legacy match in a season is a tall task — which player will have the persistence in prep, skill of navigating their way through a match, and most importantly, the luck of drawing the right cards at the right time?
-EPICat

hero

The ever competitive Hero series is off to the races once again, featuring some very familiar faces at the top of the standings. The long-standing THL org, Defias, leads the charge with the only 4-0 record in Hero. They are followed closely by Just Three Adjoining Crewmates and A Poulderfist Mountain. Notably, Wraiths of the Beyond is sitting in 5th place with the only other undefeated record, albeit at 3-0. 

On the player side of the power rankings, we have a predominant amount of players from the Teal and Orange conferences with a only 2 players representing Purple. Defias tops the chart over here as well with NotBamity representing. This is a list that we could see shake up frequently from week to week given the competitive nature of the series. 

There are some interesting storylines to pay attention to this season in Hero. Most notably, we have 2 sets of teams with similar, yet opposite, names. Who will come out on top this season in the head-to-head: Defias vs. Defy Us or one of the APMs vs. MPA?

Looking at this week, we have one key match to pay attention to and it is that aforementioned APM vs. MPA match-up. Will the Chewie-led APM come out on top or will they be thwarted by the copycats led by EPICat?
-TwoStarMako

pro

The THL Dark Beyond season is off and running, welcome back THLers!  The Pro series is starting to take shape, with some new teams finding themselves in the top spots!  Unidentified Pet Tracking find themselves in the coveted #1 spot due to less than 1% point of GW over Cheese Mongers. Cheese Mongers in the #2 spot are undefeated (ties aren't losses!) so they are sniffing at the #1 spot and have an on-paper favorable match-up against Staff of the Five Dubs.  Staff was one of the top seeds last season but find themselves off to a rough start.  Is this a classic trap match for the Mongers this week?

Rounding out the Top 3 we have Ada's Litter whose only loss is to the leaders, UPT.  The Litter have a favorable matchup against the 0-4 Interstellar Strategists, we'll see if the Strategists can get some wins from their teammates not named Dagda this week.  In 4th place we have Three Seed University.  Boy, will they make my life easier if they can clinch the Three Seed next week.  And Brushy Tuna is off to a slower start than last season, but still positioned to cruise upward.

We have a good list of undefeated players in the Top Player Rankings: Aetherian of Ada's Litter, Dagda of Interstellar Strategists, maxiebon1234 of WashedUp, eswaff of Unidentified Pet Tracking, and Pyrollama of Cheese Mongers United.  Good luck to them and to everyone going into Week 5!
-Whodack

Wild

It's time for the THL Power Rankings for Wild! Atop the standings is veteran team WTF, followed closely behind by eye opening newcomers ET N'Zoth. Staff of the 5 Dubs, APM and Super Cereal Clowns round out the teams in the playoff hunt. Clowns are sporting 46 points (tied with APM in 4th) but sport an 0-4 record to date, speaking to many close weeks not quite breaking their way. Hawk 2 and Worgen Geasers round out the bottom, sporting some good players but not the results desired to keep pace.

Looking forward, the storylines are set. WTF has always been a team good enough to beat anyone but also lose to anyone. Will they find consistency this season? Will ET N'Zoth still outperform expectations despite a lack of thl experience and variety of lineups? Will Staff lean on some deep THL experience and make a finals run? Will APM continue to underperform, despite having an MT Champion and THL hofers on the roster? Will Super Cereal Clowns find a late push that matches points with results?

If I could watch one match this week, it would be maxiebon1234(apm) vs UsernameABCD(ET N'Zoth). Both players are undefeated combo-nerds, and the match might look more like a Wild West Quick Draw Duel than a Hearthstone game.
-Schmoopiedady​