Experiment - What if Roulette Had Unofficial Championships?
Where every match is a final
Posts with the Experiment tag are various playful projects, presenting different scenarios, new rules, and things that could have played out differently. Don’t take things too seriously here, but enjoy the emerging alternate realities!
Roulette Rivals is a long and intense competition that crowns a champion after weeks of high-level play. Only a handful of players have ever claimed the title, so if we only look at tournaments won, a lot of outstanding performances end up ignored. One of the many alternative ways to rank players is through the Unofficial World Championship system.
This informal ranking method borrows from professional boxing’s knock-out title system to determine the best roulette player using the following rules:
The winner of the first-ever RRWC final is declared the inaugural unofficial champion.
The champion's next match is a title match, with the winner claiming the title.
If a title match ends in a tie, the reigning champion retains their title.
With these rules in place, how would the history of Roulette Rivals look under the Unofficial World Championship system?
Two Brackets, Two Titles
Our story begins with the match that crowned the first unified champion—the unforgettable In4Fun vs. Yannini RRWC final. For the sake of this experiment, and in recognition of Yannini’s console career, it felt fitting that despite losing the final, he would carry the Console championship to his bracket, while In4Fun retained the title on the PC side.
In4Fun defended the first unofficial championship until Round 5 of RR4, where he lost it to MrMike. Later, the title passed to Yannini in the RR4 final, making him the first and only player to hold both unofficial titles in the same tournament.1
Aside from Yannini’s dominant run on the PC side, neither bracket saw much stability throughout most of 2021. After a short reign by Phanium, Ducker emerged with three consecutive wins before the title briefly changed hands three times. Ducker regained control by defeating Speedster in the RR5 final and carried the title into RRWC 2021 after an undefeated RR6 run.
Meanwhile, Yannini’s loss in Round 5 of RR5 marked the beginning of an unpredictable era. Over the next 14 matches, challengers won 11 times, while reigning champions defended their title only thrice. This stretch saw JohnnyAxXx and Fuzk claim their only unofficial titles, In4Fun win and immediately lose twice, and Frote7 secure his first unofficial championship. Though Frote7’s 2020 titles weren’t counted under this system, he still earned a spot on the board with his RR6 victory.
Unification
The RR6 champions had vastly different starts to their 2021 world championship campaigns. Ducker dominated Group B, securing 40 out of 42 possible points, only tying two maps late in the group stage. Between his RR5 final victory and the end of the year, he set a record with 18 consecutive unofficial title defenses before finally losing in the RRWC 2021 WB Final.
In contrast, the PC title changed hands frequently during the fall of 2021. In a chaotic group stage featuring two forfeits, Frote7 narrowly finished ahead of Pigiero and 420, though every player suffered at least two defeats in their five matches. Frote7 lost the unofficial title in his first match and never reclaimed it, as it passed through multiple first-time champions before landing with Pigiero heading into the Knockout Stage.
The Dutchman carried the title through Round 4, defeating fellow countryman JohnnyAxXx, among others, before losing to k-kaneta, who brought the title to Asia for the first time. In the following round—the WB Final—history was made as the PC and Console title holders faced off for the first and only time. In a dominant performance, k-kaneta swept Ducker, unifying the two titles.
The Grand Final, however, was an all-PC affair, won by DaniButa, raising important questions about the future of this scenario. With all world champions and both 2021 finalists being PC players, and the split brackets continuing for just one more year, it was ultimately decided to keep the unofficial title merged for the remainder of the experiment.
Interregnum
The year 2022 began with DaniButa as the unified, undisputed champion, but he lost his third match of RR7 to In4Fun in the first-ever battle between RRWC champions. The fellow Hungarian carried the title to the Grand Final, where Blithe defeated him for his only Roulette Rivals title and sole unofficial championship.
In the 33-player RR8 PC bracket, defending champion Blithe played and lost the only Round 1 match, passing the title to Papierfresse. The relatively unknown German, whose best finish had been 17th place, pulled off a surprise run to the Grand Final, where he faced Pigiero in a rematch from Round 4. In an entertaining final featuring restrictions on secondary objectives in New York and Dartmoor, Pigiero emerged victorious.
Pigiero's second reign as unofficial title holder was shorter than his first: he lost to zRune in Round 4 of RR9, who then fell to In4Fun, who was defeated twice by DaniButa to get us to RRWC 2022. Like Frote7 the year before, the defending champion struggled in the group stage, losing the title to Meekah, who was then defeated by Frote7 just before the knockout stage. In the battle for the 2022 world championship, Frote7 was swept by Yannini, who then lost to TheTimeCube, only for eventual champion DaniButa to take the title back.
Two-Man Race
As of today, The_Buff_Guy remains the first and only primarily console player to reach the RRWC Final2. However, with the brackets merging by 2023, there is little reason to maintain a split in the unofficial title. The first cross-platform regular RR began with two dominant wins from DaniButa before Phanium swept him, kicking off one of the longest championship streaks in a while.
Phanium beat Moo twice at the end of RR10, remained undefeated throughout RR11, and only lost his title in Round 3 of RR12. Scruffy, the first new champion in over a year, initially lost his first title run to Dein Nomos in the WB Final but avenged the loss in an 8-6 Grand Final thriller.
Scruffy's RR12 victory marked the start of his first extended reign, as he went undefeated in the group stage, during which he recorded the first-ever championship draw against Nezuko Chan but retained his title. Five more wins in the knockout stage propelled him to his first RRWC Final, where he narrowly lost to TheTimeCube.
The Scruffy Streak
TheTimeCube became the first champion since RR2’s David Strong to not return to defend his title, raising an intriguing question for this experiment: Should Scruffy have been awarded the title as the RRWC 2023 runner-up? In this article, we explore an alternative approach, where a vacant title is passed to the winner of the subsequent Grand Final. While this wouldn't change much overall, Scruffy would lose six wins leading up to the RR13 Grand Final under this system. Sorry, Scruffy!
In4Fun edged out Scruffy in a closely contested RR13 Final, securing his first unofficial title since RR9. Scruffy got his revenge in their RR14 WB Final rematch, ending the Hungarian’s longest title streak at six. Then it was third time lucky for the Irishman, as he finally won his first final since RR12, carrying his title into RR15. Scruffy’s streak ended at the hands of Jokerj, who became the first new champion since Dein Nomos almost a year ago.
Four of the next five finals saw the challenger emerge victorious. Music Inc defeated Jokerj, then Phanium wrapped up the RR15 title but lost his first match of RRWC 2024 to lukedotpng. Luke went on to dominate his group stage, even winning an eighth consecutive match before eventually falling to The Rieper 47. The latest unofficial champion beat Dein Nomos but lost to Music Inc in the Semi-Finals, before Scruffy reclaimed the title in the Grand Final.
As of the end of RR16, Scruffy’s win streak stands at 22 matches, 11 of which also count for unofficial titles. After winning RRWC 2024, he remained undefeated in RR16, facing match point only twice in the entire tournament—against IlikeHitman and lukedotpng in the Swiss Stage. Now, with RR17 on the horizon, all eyes are on Scruffy as he looks to surpass Ducker’s monumental records for the longest win streak (23 matches) and the longest unofficial title streak (18 matches).
Familiar Faces
This experiment is similar to last year’s Substack on a world without a Losers’ Bracket, yet the results remain compelling. This alternate take on RR history—excluding the first year and much of the Console tournaments—sees Scruffy firmly on top, winning 28 title matches while losing only five. Ducker follows in second place with 21 wins and an astounding 91% win rate, having only lost two finals. Behind In4Fun, Phanium rounds out the top four, though both he and Ducker are notably impacted by the limited console representation.
Seventeen players have held the unofficial title multiple times, all of them either winners or runners-up of official RR tournaments—except for two. lukedotpng and Meekah made their mark in RRWC group stages, securing a combined total of 12 unofficial titles despite having no RR medals yet.
Among official champions3, RR7 winner Blithe is the only one with exactly one unofficial title, earned from four finals appearances. Meanwhile, despite securing just one title in RR5, IlikeHitman’s six total finals appearances remain noteworthy, with only eleven players featuring in more title matches.
With RR17 approaching, plenty of contenders are eager to become the 29th unofficial champion. ChrisX3, who reached four finals in 2021 and two more since his comeback, remains the strongest candidate. Moo and Nezuko Chan are both capable of challenging whoever holds the title, while ThatObserver and quatilyti are the most established active players looking to make their first finals.
How did you like this experiment? What would you like to read about next? Let me know in the comments!
Not simultaneously, anyway: we’ll get to that specific case later.
Yannini played on Console but not during RRWC 2020, while Music Inc also owns the game on PC but uses a controller during maps.
This excludes 2020’s one-time console champions Ibbe and David Strong, who retired before the first match of this experiment.