Top 10: 2025's Defining RR Moments
A final list to recap the year
The final day of 2025 marks the end of the sixth year of the competitive roulette community. This season was special in that it only hosted three Roulette Rivals tournaments instead of four, but the longer structure evened out the numbers: 20.5 weeks of competition resulted in 554 matches being played, fifteen more than last year, thanks to the introduction of the Swiss format.
Across the official roulette tournaments, the various community events, and the discussions in between, countless moments emerged that came to define the year. As in 2024, the Moment of the Year category from the 2025 RR Awards serves as a useful reference point while compiling this list, and we will also revisit several of the eventual award winners. So, what will 2025 be remembered for?
#10 - RR16-WC25: The expansion of unique kills
Like last year, we begin our list with an intriguing evolution of the Roulette Rivals ruleset. While the boost rules went full circle in 2024, the changes in 2025 largely moved in a single direction: introducing more and more unique kills as the year progressed.
The 2024 World Championship already featured the first two unique kills (Shoot the Car and Explosive on Car for Sierra Knox), but the real shift began with RR16 the following year. The explosive kill was soon banned after causing non-target kills for some players, but four new options were added to the pool.
By RR17 in the summer, four additional kills had been introduced; at that point, Silvio had two unique options, while two of the Santa Fortuna targets had one each. As the total number of active unique kills reached nine and most viable options were exhausted, the focus shifted from expansion to refinement. The four additions introduced for RRWC 2025 are among the last feasible kills to be added, with the least popular options likely to be removed in future tournaments.
#9 - August 30th: Moo eliminates Scruffy from RR17
When a player is as successful as Scruffy, every loss inevitably becomes a talking point. As discussed later in this list, the Irishman once again enjoyed a stellar year and avoided defeats that could qualify as an Upset of the Year, such as his loss to Ducker in 2024. This one stands out, however, as it marks the only time Scruffy was eliminated from a Roulette Rivals tournament in 2025.
Scruffy had a relatively quiet Swiss Stage at RR17, losing two of his six matches while two players, Moo and quatilyti, remained unbeaten. After sweeping Pigiero and Kum Boychuk respectively, Moo and Scruffy met in the toughest of the four Quarter-finals. The two had played three matches since RR14, all closely contested, but all won by Scruffy.
That pattern finally broke in the RR17 Quarter-finals. Scruffy took an early lead on Mumbai, but his stream went down mid-map, and with no recording available, the map had to be awarded to Moo. Over the next three maps, Moo made virtually no mistakes, delivering a decisive 8-0 blow to eliminate the defending champion. With that victory, Moo became the favorite to win RR17, and his run quickly emerged as one of the defining storylines of 2025.
Watch: the RR17 Quarter-final match between Moo and Scruffy.
#8 - RR16 & WC25: Dein Nomos’ two Grand Finals
The discussion over the best player never to win a title is a thankless one, yet it becomes more relevant with every season, given how narrow the Champions Club remains. Several names have filled that role over the years, but Dein Nomos’ 2025 campaign has firmly established him as the best player without an RR title for now.
After suffering two narrow losses across six rounds, Dein Nomos finished the RR16 Swiss Stage in seventh place with four points, the best result among the eleven players tied on that score. In the Round of 16, he edged out quatilyti in a tense match before dominating the remainder of the bracket, eliminating In4Fun and Hashashin47 by identical 8-2 margins to reach his second final. Although Dein never led in the Grand Final against Scruffy, RR16 marked a successful return to the podium after RR12.
At RRWC 2025, the Indonesian entered as the top seed of Group C and won the group convincingly ahead of apricope and Pigiero, despite a surprise loss to GiggsRH. After winning his knockout quarter, he defeated Scruffy 8-6 and then overcame TheTimeCube 10-8 to reach the World Championship Final. There, he faced Scruffy on November 23rd, with the match ending in a dominant 12-2 victory for the Irishman.
Following The_Buff_Guy, Dein Nomos became just the second player to lose three finals without ever winning one. Even so, he remains the most likely candidate to become Roulette Rivals’ next champion.
Watch: the RR16 Grand Final between Scruffy and Dein Nomos.
#7 - November 2nd: SkyL3R wins his tenth match in a row
Throughout Roulette Rivals history, winning ten matches in a row has been an exceptionally rare feat. Only eight players have managed it before, meaning that even most champions have yet to reach double digits. Given the structure of most events, achieving such a streak usually requires at least one flawless tournament, though the RRWC Group Stage offers the best opportunity to build momentum each year.
SkyL3R concluded his RR17 campaign with a 6-4 victory over Script, ending the tournament in 23rd place on three points. Entering RRWC 2025 as a third seed, he was expected to place behind graory and Yannini but ahead of IlikeHitman and the rest of Group D, a prediction that proved accurate in the end.
The Russian finished third in his group with an impressive 30 points, but achieved something far rarer along the way. He won all seven of his Group Stage matches, six of them with a 4-2 scoreline. In doing so, he became the first undefeated player in six years of RRWC history to finish outside the Top 2 in their group.
Among a stacked field of third seeds, most attention was directed toward players like Jokerj, lukedotpng, or Nezuko Chan, while SkyL3R’s eight-match winning streak largely flew under the radar. Yet he raised his level at the perfect moment, following up his Group Stage performance with a strong win over CodenameKenny and, most importantly, completing a remarkable comeback against In4Fun on difficult spins, securing his tenth consecutive victory. Although he would lose his next two matches and finish ninth overall, November 2nd marked the day SkyL3R firmly established himself among the elite.
#6 - January 31st: The Swiss tournament format debuts
RR16 marked the culmination of one of Roulette Rivals’ most carefully developed projects. After multiple rounds of polling, and discussions among admins and the community, the Swiss format was finally introduced. As a result, none of the tournaments between RRWC 2024 and RRWC 2025 followed the standard Double Elimination structure.
The Swiss system fundamentally changed how most players experience a Roulette Rivals tournament. In Double Elimination, up to half the field can be eliminated after three or fewer matches, often with just one or no wins. Under Swiss, every participant is guaranteed six matches, with the matchmaking system increasingly pairing players of similar performance as the stage progresses.
Following the positive reception of RR16 and RR17, it is safe to say that Swiss tournaments are here to stay. The next Swiss event is scheduled for May as the second of four Roulette Rivals tournaments in 2026, taking place between two Double Elimination brackets.
#5 - September 8th: Scruffy wins RRWC 2025
In a year defined by experimentation and format changes, RRWC 2025 stood out as a tournament of continuity. Hidden RNG returned to the Knockout Stage for the second consecutive year, this time integrated into a Double Elimination format, complementing the single-elimination knockout stages of the Swiss tournaments.
Despite his quarterfinal exit at RR17, Scruffy entered the World Championship as the favorite, especially after Moo opted not to participate. The Group Stage produced few surprises among the 60 participants, though Scruffy himself suffered the most notable upset, as Meekah swept him to claim the group win.
Finishing second put Scruffy into the toughest quarter of the bracket, and he once again had his work cut out for him. Yet in a path that only involved champions and finalists, he elevated his play above the rest: sweeping Pigiero, defeating Frote7 and Alph by two maps, before narrowly losing to Dein Nomos. It was then that Scruffy reached his highest level of the tournament. Across his final four matches, he won 19 maps while conceding just three, cruising to his second World Championship title.
Without repeating much of his accolades from the RRWC recap, Scruffy now sits on five career titles, just one shy of Ducker’s all-time record of six. All five have come in a cross-platform environment, itself a record, and he joins DaniButa as the only two-time RRWC champions, with both securing their titles in back-to-back years.
#4 - RR17 & WC25: Alph shines under pressure
Every player evolves with experience. Some grow in confidence, others refine consistency, or eliminate weaknesses in their map pool. But no competitor experienced a more dramatic transformation in 2025 than Alph.
While the first half of his year was comparatively quiet, it still delivered a roller coaster of results: a surprise loss to Harmaa.-, Top 8 finishes in both the RR16 and RR17 Swiss Stages, and a strong Round of 16 win over Dein Nomos. From there, the madness began. In the RR17 Quarter-finals, Alph trailed In4Fun 2-6 before winning all three remaining RNG maps to complete a comeback, prompting that famous reaction by GLeBaLK and Zi. In the Semi-finals, he repeated the feat against Yannini, once again reversing a 2-6 deficit by sweeping the RNG maps. Although Alph ultimately fell to Moo in the Grand Final, his breakout silver medal was well deserved.
Alph’s momentum carried directly into RRWC 2025. After finishing third in a tightly contested group, Alph was drawn against Yannini once more. Remarkably, the match unfolded almost identically but now under the First-to-6 format: Yannini surged to a 4-0 lead, only for Alph to reverse-sweep his way to victory. Even more astonishingly, the same storyline repeated in the very next match against Qrescent7, marking just the second instance of consecutive reverse sweeps in RR history.1
Although Alph would lose his next two matches to finish ninth overall, it became clear that holding match point against him only meant the game was about to begin. Had even one of the twelve match points gone the other way, his year could have looked very different. Instead, Alph’s 2025 stands as one of the most compelling individual seasons to date, earning him both Most Improved Player and Clip-Machine at the 2025 RR Awards.
#3 - July 23rd: RRLAN 2025 begins
At number three sits the most memorable moment of the year that occurred outside a Roulette Rivals match. All it took was thirteen players gathering near Berlin for three days to create the largest offline roulette tournament to date.
In many ways, RRLAN mirrored a traditional Roulette Rivals event, with a randomized bracket draw, First-to-6 matches, and picks and bans in effect until the Grand Final. While competition was secondary to the shared experience, the tournament still produced several standout moments. Scruffy and lukedotpng faced off in a tightly contested 5-3 opening round match, won by the then four-time champion. In the same round, Falcon completed a reverse sweep against Pigiero to win the Benelux derby.
The match of the tournament came on the final day, when Yannini defeated Scruffy 6-4 in a thriller that included a respin and two photo-finish ties. Scruffy ultimately placed fourth, just ahead of Yannini in third, while In4Fun claimed the RRLAN trophy by defeating ChrisX3 in the final. Regardless of placement or number of matches played, RRLAN 2025 remains a great memory for everyone who attended.
#2 - March 6th: The first-ever First-to-8 reverse sweep
By the end of 2025, 27 players had completed a total of 37 reverse sweeps. Only one, however, occurred in a First-to-8 match, with Jokerj delivering the most remarkable single-match feat of the year during RR16.
In the final round of the RR16 Swiss Stage, Nezuko Chan secured a must-win victory over Jokerj to advance to the Knockout Stage in fifth place, while Jokerj finished twelfth on four points. As a result, the two immediately met again in the predetermined knockout bracket. In their rematch six days later, Nezuko surged to a commanding 6-0 lead as Joker struggled across the opening maps. Standing on three match points, Nezuko seemed poised to reach the Quarter-finals, matching his best result from a Roulette Rivals tournament.
Jokerj finally regained control on his second home pick, mastering the Butler spin on Isle of Sgàil. While his Hokkaido run wasn’t as perfect, it still outpaced Nezuko Chan’s second attempt. Santa Fortuna followed, one of Joker’s weaker maps, and Nezuko’s best opportunity to close the match. Two kills in, Nezuko opted for a risky emetic play on Rico inside the mansion, but the strategy backfired, and the resulting restart gave Joker the time he needed to force a decider.
On Haven Island, despite losing three maps in a row, Nezuko once again took an early lead, executing two clean kills before infiltrating the villa. He prepared and pulled off his last kill perfectly, but he exposed a body by opening the wrong door, triggering a devastating restart. Like in Santa Fortuna, Jokerj wasn’t close to finishing, but with great patience, he carried himself to the finish line, completing a comeback never seen before.
Honorable mentions
2025 will be remembered for several other exciting or entertaining matches. In RR16, the debut of the Swiss format produced an all-time classic, with Frank The Eagle and My_pika battling for their first-ever win while showcasing innovative strategies. Among the RRWC 2025 matches, the ones that left the biggest mark are aphro’s upset over quatilyti and the 10-8 thriller between Dein Nomos and TheTimeCube for a spot in the Grand Final.
This year also featured an unusually high number of interesting clips and quotable lines. These include the moment when Nezuko Chan has “only gone and done” an emeticless drowning save; the birth of the name “In4Out”; a ghost haunting the shoutcaster voice chat; and Alph stealing the show with various presentations between maps.
Lastly, while they didn’t make the Top 10, the stories of this year’s third-place finishers are compelling in their own right. Hashashin47 earned bronze in RR16, marking a successful comeback after 1.5 years following his elimination in the RRWC 2023 Group Stage. RR17’s third place went to graory, one of RR’s most well-prepared newcomers, who scored his third Top 10 in as many tournaments. Finally, the RRWC bronze medal went to TheTimeCube, the community’s primary RRWC specialist, who claimed his fourth career medal (third at RRWCs) and has since retired from roulette, hopefully only temporarily.
#1 - July 13th: Moo wins Roulette Rivals 17
The scene of roulette is getting more exciting each tournament, as the list of top players and tournament favorites keeps increasing. But despite this, the ultimate ceiling of Roulette Rivals seems ever harder to reach: after Scruffy won RR12 and TheTimeCube won RRWC 2023, five tournaments went by without a new champion being crowned, though mostly thanks to Scruffy as he won three of them.
Moo first appeared in Roulette Rivals back in RR8, immediately showcasing high potential. He came close to a title in RR10, losing the deciding map of the Grand Final to Phanium. After skipping every second tournament for a while, he returned to form with a streak of Top 10 finishes from RR13 through RR16, entering RR17 as a contender for the title.
Unlike in RR16, when he finished with just four points, Moo went undefeated in the RR17 Swiss Stage, scoring four wins and a forfeit win in five matches, which secured him the second seed for the KO Stage. After sweeping Pigiero, he faced Scruffy in a Quarter-final rematch of their RR16 encounter. This time, aside from an unfortunate Mumbai, Moo was untouchable, eliminating the defending champion and reaching his first Top 4 since RR10.
In the Semi-finals, Moo made few mistakes after the opening map, leaving graory with little room to catch up. He advanced 8-2 to his second final, where he faced the unpredictable Alph. The final saw more errors from both players, with the match going back and forth until 6-6. Eventually, Mumbai proved decisive, as Moo restarted one fewer time to secure the map, and later the match, and his first Roulette Rivals title as the fourteenth champion in series history.
+1 - December 14th: CurryMaker hosts RR Awards 2025
Roulette’s annual celebration returned for its second edition as CurryMaker hosted the 2025 RR Awards. With nominations open for most of the year, expanded categories, and a spectacular award show following an epic intro, the event exceeded even the high expectations set by its inaugural edition.
Having won two of the three Roulette Rivals tournaments this year, Scruffy claimed his second Player of the Year award, alongside Greatest Rivalry with Dein Nomos. However, he did not leave with the most trophies: the entertaining Alph, the hard-working GLeBaLK, and the consistent Dein Nomos each took home three awards.
Additional honors went to aphro for Upset of the Year against quatilyti, to CurryMaker and Yannini for hosting RRLAN 2025, and to Moo, whose first title win was voted Moment of the Year. It would not be surprising if a new champion once again carried this award, but the question remains: who will step up and claim an RR title next year?
The Hitman Roulette Substack wishes everyone in the roulette community happy holidays and a successful 2026!
Do you agree with this list? What were the defining moments of 2025 for you? Let me know in the comments!
Yannini defeated zRune and k-kaneta in the same manner, back in RR7 (PC).