RRWC 2024: 32 Journey into the Unknown

The 2024 Group Stage Review

The Roulette Rivals World Championship is the most popular and prestigious event in the Hitman community, hosted by Frote7’s Speedrun Community. If you’re interested in the rules of roulette, check out the articles about the basics here.

The greatest weeks in roulette have concluded, the time of ten matches per day is over. 64 have become 32 over the Group Stage of the 2024 Roulette Rivals World Championship, and as usual, many storylines have emerged, upsets have been scored, and players have been celebrated.

With the knockout stage already drawn, and the array of life-and-death matches scheduled to begin on Tuesday, let’s take one last look at how the group stage of the fifth world championship has unfolded!

Group A - Final Day Reckoning

Ever since the start, and also at the Halloween update, Group A looked like a two-horse race between defending champion TheTimeCube and strong second seed Frote7. What looked like an effective two-point lead for Time eventually grew over November, as he swept his next three opponents (HOUSEN, SovietDubov, and AlexHiller) while Frote suffered a narrow loss against Qrescent7 before beating HOUSEN 4-2.

Apart from undefeated TheTimeCube, everyone ended up losing two or more matches, so the champ’s group win was secured before the final weekend. This meant that the highly anticipated Time-Frote clash didn’t matter for first place, but it did matter for Frote’s final position in the group.

With Qrescent7 only losing to Time and HOUSEN, and scoring multiple sweeps along the way, the American became the favorite to snatch second place from Frote. A Qrescent sweep against DeadlyMuffin_Man forced Frote to do the same against TimeCube, but the game went 2-4 narrowly to Time, meaning Frote finished third.

With 38 points, more than anyone this year, TheTimeCube became just one of two players to defend their group win after last year (the other one being Scruffy), while Qrescent7 and HOUSEN advance from their first RRWC group stage.

Group B - Finishing the Job

While other groups had a more meaningful fight to avoid elimination, and there was little doubt about which four players would advance from here, Group B will still be remembered as one of the closest groups of all time.

We continue our story from October 31st, when ThatObserver led In4Fun and graory 18-17-17, with Pigiero yet to play a single match. Anyone who doubted the Dutchman could see an impressive start from him, scoring 16 points in his first three games. Around the same time, Channel Reindeer scored a major upset over ThatObserver to keep his qualifying chances alive.

In4Fun’s 4-2 win over Pigiero was a setback for both, as sweeps were all but required to stand out from the tight competition. And as In4Fun lost another map, this time to Channel, the stage was set: anyone hoping to win the group would have to exceed (or in Observer’s case, equal) the Hungarian’s 31-point total. Going into the final weekend, any of the four players could win the group: all three challengers had narrow but doable paths.

First up, ThatObserver and Pigiero met in an ultimately rescheduled match of great importance.¹ Observer won Bangkok with a clutch patio isolation, then was slightly faster than Pigiero in Dartmoor, winning both photo finishes with margins of 6 and 5 seconds respectively. With Pigiero providing the only restart of the match, Observer also won Sapienza, becoming the new favorite to win the group.

But just as he looked destined to take the lead, Observer fell at the final hurdle: losing Santa Fortuna to Harmaa.- to end up on 30 points. In a likely Roulette Rivals first, graory had faith in his hands to the ultimate degree: score 3 or more points against Pigiero to win the group, 2 to finish second, 1 to finish third, 0 to finish fourth.

Stream issues, a respin and a Dartmoor loss have complicated things for graory, and hope had seemed to fade away as he could only see the back of Pigiero for the entire Haven Island spin. But he still pulled off a narrow photo finish, and once the loading times were counted, Pigiero only won by about 1.5 seconds, not enough for an outright win. The draw secured Pigiero’s position as fourth, and graory eventually finished the job by scoring his 32nd point in Berlin, winning the group in his rookie year.

ChannelReindeer’s solid run ended with 20 points and four wins, ahead of rookie Harmaa.-, with Fuzk defeating Pac to finish seventh.

Group C - An Impactful End

Ties are rare, especially when the group win is at stake, it has only happened three times before. With Scruffy finishing his seven matches on 34 points, BigMachete13 received the opportunity to add his name to that list, if he scored exactly ten points in his final two matches. Scoring 11 or 12 would have even given him a surprise group win over Scruffy, so Machete had plenty to play for.

On November 3rd BigMachete swept Camel, whose path to the knockout stage narrowed a lot with that loss, meaning it was all down to Machete vs Cabben for the group. Strong maps from Machete in both Santa Fortuna and Bangkok kept the race alive until the last map. A straightforward spin presented only one challenge: impact explosion kill for Tamara. Both have struggled with it, Cabben exited and lost Silent Assassin during the tango cutscene, but his second completion still came faster than Machete’s first: by a razor-thin margin, Scruffy won his group again.

Cabben’s two points against Machete and six against Camel offset the early loss against Dynaso, safely advancing to the knockout stage for the first time. Dynaso finished his first world championship strong, with a sweep against rupansansei and an upset win against Ducker, which paved the way for an exciting final match. With a score of 6-0, Cabben defeated Ducker to stay ahead of him by six points, as well as behind the leading duo by six points.

Group D - The Comeback Kids

This group had the least new stories to tell, as ChrisX3 and zRune secured their crucial wins just hours before the first recap. Focus then shifted to lukedotpng, who had to score 13 points in three matches to take the win away from Phanium.

Though Luke and Some Random Person tied their first map (Random would have needed only five more seconds to finish), the rest of the American’s group stage went perfectly: winning all seven matches and taking the group by four points over Phanium.

lukedotpng secured his win on the first map of the final match against mikulers, ending the group on November 5th, and making it the first one to finish. Before that match, Ashton played his final three games, winning one and scoring six more points for a total of seven, four behind a Random-mikulers tie. After a decisive loss to zRune, linux_penguin’s fate was all but sealed, but 21 points is a respectable feat in one of the toughest groups of 2024.

While RR15 champion Phanium was the favorite of this group and remains a tourney contender for the knockout stage, Group D will be remembered for the amount of talent these returning players have brought: lukedotpng joined again after RR14, zRune after RR13, and of course, ChrisX3 keeps his run alive in his first tournament after three years.

Group E - Déjà Vu

Group E was the only group in which none of the first three seeds met each other throughout October, meaning fireworks were scheduled for late in the group stage.

Despite only meeting lower seeds, ChannelJoined was for a while in the best position in the entire tournament, scoring 18/18 points in October, then extending it to 28/30 points scored in his first five matches, keeping this group firmly a three-horse race.

The battle for fourth heated up on November 3rd, with Fly4u scoring an all-important sweep against apricope, tying them at 16 points each with one match to go. Fly4u had bLULW to play last, apricope still had to face Yannini, and Falcon (on 17 points) met The Rieper 47 last. Fly4u sweeping bLULW almost guaranteed his qualification, which eventually became official: Falcon scored an impressive 3-3 against Rieper, but finished two points short of a decider, though still ahead of apricope, Fe3O2, and bLULW.

Yannini started the battle of the top three seeds with a scrappy win against The Rieper 47, then swept ChannelJoined for the first loss in the American’s tournament. With the developments over at the Falcon match, the final game (of the group stage) between Rieper and Channel decided second place: Rieper won 6-0 to finish ahead of Channel and group stage surprise Fly4u. Yanni won an RRWC group for the first time since 2020, with Rieper and Channel finishing in the same position (and as groupmates again!) as last year.

Group F - Fourth Time’s the Charm

Group F played the fewest matches this year, only twenty, but almost all of them were significant in some way. At the October recap, only Dein’s first place was somewhat secure, with everything else on the line for the last seven matches. The duo of quatilyti and IlikeHitman seemed like favorites for second place, slightly ahead of Parapluie and OhShitMan fighting for fourth, with wildcards The_Buff_Guy and Redfox on the outside looking in.

The first November match already muddied the waters with Parapluie scoring an invaluable win over quatilyti. With another two wins, Dein Nomos ended the group stage undefeated, putting both The_Buff_Guy and quatilyti in tough spots. Buff’s (6 points / 4 games) next match against Parapluie (13p / 5g) would eliminate at least one player from contention, but with this exact 4-2 result, both Canadians were out of the tournament.

The final two matches were played to determine the order between the remaining trio: in back-to-back matches, IlikeHitman was first swept by quatilyti, then defeated OhShitMan, to finish third overall. A game between Buff and Redfox was scheduled but never played, but thankfully it didn’t matter for the overall standings.

First-time group winner Dein Nomos has remained one of the most consistent forces to be reckoned with, finishing ahead of quatilyti and IlikeHitman, both always capable of upsets. But the community has celebrated OhShitMan’s qualification the most, finally clinching knockouts after three consecutive painful fifth-place finishes.

Group G - Never in Doubt

On Halloween, this group was still remarkably open between Peter Dutton MP (7 matches, 26 points) and four challengers (20 or fewer, 4 or fewer). In fact, there were scenarios until very late in the group stage that would have seen the Australian get knocked out even with 26 points.

Moo quickly got going to retake the lead from Peter, scoring another three wins to end the group undefeated: sweeping both the #2 and #3 seeds but losing a map to #4, #5, and #6. Scoring 18 points in his last four matches, Alph picked up the pace to end up on 28 points, enough for second place ahead of a tie. davidredsox was the last to secure his spot in the knockout stage, after beating both Alph and Rocky with a score of 4-2, only denied third place by a losing head-to-head against Dutton.

Seventh-seeded aphro played some of the best roulette of her career to end up in 5th place and 21 points, and that’s before considering technical difficulties hindering her performance. She still beats out her fellow Africans (Rocky and TK47), the former finishing on a personal-best 18 points, with rookie gekko rounding out the group.

Group H - Mellowed Out

The November situation for Group H relied on two assumptions: that Music Inc would finish the group without losing a map; and that MaxMasters would remain winless. Both turned out to be true: sweeps over ChromeX, CurryMaker, and Rommel put Music on 32 points, four ahead of Nezuko Chan for a group win; and Max Masters ended his group with just two points against ChromeX.

These assumptions were needed to describe a three-way fight for third place among CurryMaker, Rommel, and Meekah: only four points apart with four matches to go, including Meekah yet to play their two rivals. With Meekah’s unfortunate dropout, however, all the pieces fell into place for Curry: after Rommel lost to Music, Curry had one last match to overtake him on points. With a sweep against Max Masters (on the final day, after several reschedules), Curry did enough to qualify for his third knockout stage.

Music Inc became the fifth first-time group winner of the year; like graory, he wasn’t playing in competitions twelve months ago and now sits atop an RRWC group. Nezuko Chan finishes his best-ever group stage following a change in mindset this year, ahead of Jokerj and CurryMaker.

No Second Chances

After 212 matches over 23 days, all groups concluded in time, with only two players forfeiting from the competition. The field is getting tighter and tighter, which is supported by two facts:

• 19 players have returned to the knockout stage after last year, three (Nezuko Chan, ChrisX3, zRune) are returning after a gap, but 10 will be completely new to these brackets.

• Only two players (Scruffy, TheTimeCube) defended their group wins from last year, and only five more (Dein Nomos, Yannini, In4Fun, The Rieper 47, Phanium) finished in the top two in both 2023 and 2024.

The start of the knockout stage was marked with Sunday’s KO Stage draw. #1 seeded defending champion TheTimeCube was fittingly drawn into the #1 spot, joined by Yannini from Group E, and runners-up quatilyti and In4Fun. The second quarter is widely considered the toughest of all time, as only one of Moo, Scruffy, and Phanium can make the Final Four, that is if none of HOUSEN, Nezuko Chan, IlikeHitman, Pigiero, or ChannelJoined pull off an upset.

There are no standout players from the third quarter, which will make things even tenser: can Dein Nomos or lukedotpng turn their group win into a Semi-Final ticket, or will it be Qrescent7, The Rieper 47, or someone from the other four? The final part of the bracket is headlined by Music Inc and graory, the two best rookies of 2024, but they can already face returning ChrisX3 and vengeful Frote7 as early as Round 2.

From now on, the world championship becomes a single-elimination, do-or-die spectacle, with only 32 matches remaining until December 8th. Matches start at first-to-8 and only get longer, with hidden RNG maps keeping players on their toes. Who will handle the new format the best? Who will be the Roulette Rivals World Champion? Let me know in the comments!

The 2024 Roulette Rivals World Championship is held from October 18th to December 8th in Frote7’s Speedrun Community. Spectators can follow the results in several places inside and outside the Discord server. All scheduled matches appear on the HITMAPS main page, while detailed match results appear on the RRStats website and the community spreadsheet.

1. This match was originally scheduled for Saturday 23:59 as a likely final group stage game but was eventually moved forward by a day.