Who Was Ranklytics?

By YellowDart

THL is one of only a handful of things in the world with more eras than Taylor Swift; and today we’ll explore an era of THL that, while brief, was absolutely electric. The Discord server was buzzing like a hive of bees who just learned that Winnie the Pooh is in town. Late in 2019, possibly during a valley in the cycles of interest levels in Hearthstone, a “3 person collective” who called themselves Ranklytics showed up uninvited to the THL Discord server and dropped a fresh take on THL Power Rankings based on cutting-edge analytics modeling and discord-scraping technology. It was full of zingers and hot takes, drawing reactions more volatile than Yogg-Saron. 
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The original post:

Power rankings had been done before—different people had taken on the effort over the years with different formats and metrics—but this was a new level. The takes were largely viewed as spot-on even if harsh, and the inside-joke-laden commentary seemed impossible for an outsider to have picked up on so quickly. Responses were mixed like a smoothie: sheer bewilderment over how someone could pull this off with no previous exposure to THL, excitement that THL was on the come-up, joy for finally getting recognized by “big data” or at least someone external, skepticism around what seemed like a total sham, and plenty of offense taken by the tier names and creative liberties taken.

After the dust settled, everything sat quiet for about a week. Then Ranklytics struck again. A new power ranking was released--updated to take the feedback they received and better fit the THL culture--to largely positive responses:

Week by week, additional power rankings continued to roll out and became a weekly staple of THL content. It became something most looked forward to because there wasn’t much like it going on at the time, and it’s always fun to hear what other people think about your team. The mystery began to gnaw at people though, and the speculation on who Ranklytics really was began:​

​After a couple of months, the momentum was still rolling. TerdHerder set into motion what ultimately would end up being one of the greatest THL interviews of all time (more on this later).

​More months passed, and Ranklytics delivered with consistency every week. They wrapped up a full season of rankings and started up for their second season, which also happened to be about when your friendly neighborhood Girl Scouts start going door to door selling cookies each Spring. Apparently THLers have opinions on this topic, and Ranklytics struck again in a major way:

This one might have caused even more chaos than the original post. Maybe. People were questioning where peanut butter belonged in the food pyramid and were googling Thin Mint Pizza. Was this an epic troll job? Are they actually geniuses? Either way, everyone has an opinion on Girl Scout cookies and this did more than enough to stir the Ranklytics pot, which was about to reach its boiling peak…

The pinnacle of the Ranklytics phenomenon showed up just a couple weeks later on Tavern Talk: an exclusive interview with TerdHerder, Mayanadon, and Dusharmo who brought all the tough questions. Ranklytics delivered, complete with a concealed identity via a voice modifier and shadowed portrait akin to a shady mob boss but still taking all the questions straight on. Some highlight responses:
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• Peanut Butter: perfectly good food. Should be used on sandwiches and crackers, but NOT a dessert.
  
• Pronouns: he/him
  
• Best wrong identity theory: getting messages being told who they are, messages in other languages that are responded to via google translate, accusations of being non-human
  
• Why THL: they were Hearthstone players and liked the amount of data and saw an unmet need and an informal environment
  
• Annoy-o-Team: impossible to figure out
  
• Best team name / logo: Good Luck Albatrosses (dropped some impressive animal facts here)
  
• Hot Dog: not a sandwich (2+ pieces of bread requirement)
  
• Better DadLegend: Hero Series when compared to their series, questionable head to head. Recommended format for showdown: Tavern Brawl.
  
• Collective: 3 people, not taking on additional members
  
• How did they get so familiar with THL so quickly: “Discord-scraping” software utilizing word associations… Saku = nice, Shunsui = shadow realm, Rebobson = twitter ban, Mayanadon = glorious beard. 
  
• Paid for THL work?: No, but would accept. Exposure is the current form of payment. Would do other series for the right price.
  
• Favorite 5 seed: Saku 
  
• Correct amount of Toilet Paper to hoard during COVID: 4-5 cases (based on square/usage analysis)
  
• Unlikely to enter THL as players to prevent bias
  

After the interview, the Ranklytics activity began to slow down dramatically. Speculation still ran rampant on who it could be. Ranklytics would drop a rogue zinger in the chat which would build up hope of a sustained return, but as Donde once predicted, Ranklytics faded like a zephyr in the autumn as the air starts to chill. The last rankings were posted in mid-March 2020 and the last Discord post was a teaser of a GIF in December 2020. After that, the occasional mention would get dropped every so often—a shot in the dark maybe that would summon Ranklytics’ return—but to no avail. As we look back though, 5 years later, the Ranklytics era of THL truly was special. The rankings and content were great, but lighting a spark in the always wonderful THL community was the real treasure.  It's what makes Ranklytics a THL legend, despite never playing a match. 
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A very likely incomplete list of people accused of being Ranklytics:

• Diamond
  
• RidiculousHat
  
• Theseus
  
• Shoebacca
  
• RonMexico
  
• Inzi
  
• Khell
  
• POWBot
  
• Markshire
  
• Terdherder
  
• Donde
  
• LiquidOx
  
• TheBigTed
  
• Tues
  
• “Inside all of us all along”

At one point a tier list was suggested to rank the people accused of being Ranklytics into tiers of likelihood of that being true. This never came to fruition, but the mystery lives on.