Panda Global Rankings Ultimate

The Panda Global Rankings Ultimate (PGRU) is a list compiled by Panda Global Gaming's PG Stats team ranking the world's top 50 smashers in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The first season started on February 1st, 2019, with GENESIS 6, and ended on July 7th with Albion 4. The first season included a total of 82 tournaments and the tournament tier system only factored in entrant count. The second season started with Low Tier City 7 on July 12th-14th, 2019, and ended with Super Ascension on December 14th-15th, 2019. Season 2 of the PGRU had many changes, including changing the tournament tier system to factor in the amount of top 50 players in attendance, and is the first season to include invitationals such as the Thunder Smash 2 and Smash Ultimate Summit 2. The Spring 2020 season started on December 16th, 2019, and would have been a panel-based ranking of the top 100 players. The PGRU was frozen from March 12th, 2020 to February 28th, 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the Spring 2020 season being cancelled. For 2021, a pseudo-ranking in the form of a tier list called PGRUContenders was made. It was followed by the third season for March 1st-June 13th, 2022 with a panel-based ranking split into regions with 50 players each.

General methodology

Although the methodology has received changes with each iteration, there are several rules that remain the same. The Tournament Tier System returned, and tournaments that qualify for the PGR are given a tier based on either the number of entrants or, starting from the Fall 2019 PGRU, the number of PGR attendees present. For the latter, the higher ranked a player is, the more the player is worth. However, not all tournaments are considered when they reach the threshold: arcadians, weeklies, biweeklies, and tournaments held near another (such as pre-major locals) are excluded.

A newly-introduced mechanic is the international multiplier, which gave tournaments outside of the continental United States a higher point value. Initially, international tournaments were all given a 1.25x boost, however the multiplier was altered in the Spring 2020 season so that non-Japanese international tournaments were given an approximately 1.67x boost.

During the first two seasons, the power rankings were creating using an algorithm that factored in placements, victories and losses over PGR and non-PGR players, and outplacements to create a list of 50 players, with 5 "honorable mentions" given the Area 51 position. The subjective X-Factor survey returned as well. Starting in the cancelled Spring 2020 PGRU season, the algorithm would have been replaced with a panel that would rank the top 100 players of that season, with 5 "rising stars" chosen halfway through the season. 2021 had a pseudo-ranking in the form of a tier list decided by panelists called PGRUContenders. The third season was a panel-based ranking split by region of the top 50 players in North America and Europe and an unordered list of 50 players to watch in Japan.