Sources

The rankings on this site cover every player who has played in an official STA/EGA tournament. Matches outside STA/EGA tournaments don't count, and neither do matches from earlier tournaments — those lacked the regulations, comparability, and objectivity needed for a fair rating. A match counts once at least one round has officially been played, and only legitimately won, tied, or lost matches count toward ELO.

These are individual (1v1) ratings only — team ELO, for matches with more than two players, is calculated separately.

Ratings depend solely on who you played — the round, tournament, and surrounding circumstances have no bearing on the standings. STA used the classic ELO rating method by Arpad Elo, with K=40 and a range (divisor) of 300.

ELO updates after each tournament stage completes, not after every individual match. For a single-stage tournament, it updates once at least 15 matches and over 75% of all standard matches have been played; failing that, ratings still update at least once every two months of active tournament play. If a tournament is canceled, its already-played matches only count once that same 15-match/75% threshold is met. A tournament where over 25% of matches were canceled or forfeited, or where fewer than 15 matches were played overall, doesn't count toward the ratings at all.

Because of that update cadence, "holding #1" on the Records page means being ranked #1 in STA's official standings after a tournament stage — not simply having the single highest ELO at some moment mid-tournament. The Top 10 Over the Years replay shows the real recorded ELO change from every match, but the official leaderboard itself only ever moved in these batch updates, never continuously.