A Breakdown of RRWC Group Stage Stats
The unique world of round-robin RR
The Roulette Rivals World Championship is the prime tournament of the Hitman community. Held once a year in two stages, winning RRWC is the highest prestige someone can earn in roulette. At the same time, the barrier of entry is the lowest here, anyone who signs up gets to play up to seven short matches in the group stage, stretched over 3.5 weeks, making it the ideal conditions to ease into tournament play.
In today’s post, we’ll look at several statistics and leaderboards regarding the first stage of the world championships, the RRWC group stage.
The world championship is unique because players get seeded before entering, ensuring the tournament favorites are placed in different groups. Players earn seeding points from their regular RR placements, with the previous champions guaranteeing themselves a top seed. You can find the preliminary 2024 rankings here.
This system has been used since 20211, only the inaugural championship placed players differently. Back then only the eight champions and finalists of 2020 were seeded, the rest of the group stage was drawn randomly ahead of the reveal stream.
RRWC group stage matches are “play-all-three”, they are always exactly three maps long: two chosen maps and a random one. There are no pick restrictions or bans, a player can select the same map up to seven times.
The format has been “single round-robin” since 2021, meaning players have to face all their group opponents once. The only difference is once again from 2020, those four-player groups featured a double round-robin format, players met once on Season 1 maps2, then on Season 2 maps.
Winners and Veterans
Twelve players participated in all four previous Roulette Rivals World Championships so naturally they will appear in most of the leaderboards in today’s post. With 27 games, Frote7 and Yannini are the most experienced, as they have always been in full groups of eight (or four in 2020).
In4Fun has won the most games at 24, just half a match ahead of Frote7. Neither is undefeated, those would be GKPunk and Dein Nomos going 7/7 in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Notable players with near-perfect winrates include In4Fun (24W-1L), k-kaneta (13-1), JohnnyAxXx (9-1), Scruffy (4.5-0.5), ChrisX3 (6-1), and Ebramehdi (5-1).
Every Point Matters
The RRWC Group Stage is the only time in the entire roulette year where winning a match is not everything: each map is worth the same, so the fight doesn’t stop when the winner is decided. Many have clinched qualification with points scored on the final map, even when they couldn’t win the match anymore.
Only the 2020 champions have crossed the 100-point mark, five more are likely to join them this year. But the player with the highest points per match average is Scruffy, finishing just one Nezuko Chan tie away from a perfect first year.
A perfect group stage has only been achieved twice, by In4Fun in 2022 and Phanium in 2023. Ducker, Frote7, and k-kaneta were two points away once, while JohnnyAxXx boasts an unusual dominant win: defeating davidredsox 11-1 in a two-person group in 2020.
The Best Seeds
Seeds don’t always translate into results but a good placement can make players’ paths easier. Six players (Phanium, Scruffy, Speedster, ChrisX3, Moo, and Music Inc) have always been top seeds, and four of them are likely to sign up this year as well.
Veterans have had various paths and trajectories throughout the years, but don’t be fooled by a Frote7 second seed or a Yannini third seed: they can turn every group into the Group of Death. Though they’ve never been a top seed, the consistency of davidredsox and the continuous improvement of ThatObserver also stand out.
The Best Results
Only eight players can say each year that they won their RRWC group, a rare achievement in itself. Six people have never been bested in the group stage, and three of them (Scruffy, Jokerj, In4Fun) are all but certain to return and try to keep their streak going.
Frote7 and IlikeHitman have won their groups for the last three years, but they will have to beat a first seed (or even each other) to keep their streak going. Yannini has never finished below second, as he, Ducker, and MrMike make the rest of the five players who advanced to the RRWC knockout stage all four times.
Overachievers
Finally, let’s look at RRWC’s greatest group stage overachievers. Some only show up for the World Championship, some are veterans with perfect timing of form. Being an impressive rookie isn’t a requirement for this list, but it certainly helps.
Since he didn’t participate in any tournaments in between, Sparkles’ first two tournaments had two things in common: a seed way below his talent, and a strong second-place finish. Everyone else only had one breakout tournament: GKPunk is still the only eighth-seed to win an RRWC group, k-kaneta went from sixth seed to being the 2021 silver medalist, and MrMike made all his opponents’ life difficult as he finished third in the 2023 Group of Death.
Below the top 4, we can find memorable group wins from DaniButa and The Rieper 47 and impressive showings from Apricope, Kum Boychuk, and Rustol, among many others. RRWC is not only about the champions and contenders, there are players with all types of experience who can cause upsets or even the ultimate Cinderella story.
The 2024 Roulette Rivals World Championship is held from October 18th to December 8th in Frote7’s Speedrun Community.
A scoring change was implemented for 2023; before then anyone outside the Top 6 was given one point for participating.
Called “Legacy Maps” back then.