So their secret is that they have their fanboyz shouting out in front of them how good they are? But then how can you get those fanboyz? What's your prize Pink? Are you hoping that a tiny little bit of their fame drops down on you? Come, stop following them and be my fanboy, I promise to treat you nicely.

YouMustBeKidding - you must be kidding...

I think the optimal approach to clan ranking would be first determining what matters (Clan League, ladders, etc.) and how much. And then just getting that data so at the very end at least we can easy, "Based on these assumptions/values, [clan X] is the best."

There has to be a qualitative step where we determine what's important. And of course some data we need to gather will also be qualitative, so I don't think a pure-numbers approach would make much sense. But cruching numbers where possible would help because there's immense gaps in everyone's knowledge when it comes to the ability of clans.

Alternatively, we can create a more dynamic, much faster-moving version of Clan League to allow us to more quickly catch changes (like VS/Yin-Yang/etc. stepping into the picture). I was thinking something like this:

- Each clan can submit however many templates they want and whenever they want (the league would be ongoing and not start-stop), but they have to be approved by a league manager to avoid duplicates.

- Each template will be treated like a title belt. Champions would be those who beat previous champions, second place would be previous champions, etc.

- For each template where it's Champion, a clan would get (# of games played on that template) points (or some variation thereof, like log base 2 of # of games, if it's necessary to encourage players to try out new templates- but I think that'll be taken care of by the most-played templates being the toughest to steal). Second place would get half of that. Third place half of what second place gets, and so on until it rounds down to 0. This would mean that templates would be validated through play- so Strat 1v1 will beat out Poon Squad settings easily.

- A template needs at least 8 games for anyone to get points from it.

- For each game, the clan manager can designate who plays for the clan (making inactives less of a problem and allowing each clan to constantly play with its best).

Just had this idea for a while. Might make it someday, once I figure out my semester workload.

If we are ranking them purely on skill, then how is 20 not first by a long shot? No one can compete with them on team games. Even with just players that are active, 20 is the most skilled.

So you're saying Piggy and HHH are 'by a longshot' more skillful than all of Apex? Because the only active members of 20 right now are Piggy and HHH. Fridge is retired and has more points than Szew and Myhand for the last 30 days. Same with Odin.

Even if those 5 were all active: Piggy, HHH, Szew, Myhand, and Odin. That roster would not be better than Apex's.

Stop fanboying for a second and accept the facts. 20 has been dead. Apex, WG, and GG are all 3 more active and more skillful than they are now. Even if 20 were alive they wanted Apex to merge with them to fill up for 20 members, so obviously they think of our entire clan at their level.

20 shouldn't even be included on this list anymore considering they only have 2 active members left, but nostalgia prevails.

I thought most of Apex were originally 20 members anyway

The Apex members who were in 20 before we got our clan page were Frank and I. Piggy, Timi, and ultimaratio joined Apex after 20 had its drama. When Gui had control we were asked up front if Apex would just merge with 20. We declined since we liked the way Apex is and left 20 once we had the clan page. So yeah, everyone from Apex when 20 was formed was invited to 20.

Edited 9/2/2015 08:42:20

Apex would much rather merge with Masters than merge with 20 :P

We only have 2 Master members. We have 2 AHoL members. We have had 2 WG members (JSA and I). We have had 4 20 members (dat weed bruh). We have had 1 WM member and invited like 2-3 others. Apex just wants to be its own thing.

Lolowut - not only those two in 20 are active. ;) and btw "Piggy, HHH, Szew, Myhand, and Odin" in my humble opinion are better that any apex roster you may be able to challenge them with. However - it's a matter of activity. Members of the [20] clan were nowhere near as active as they used to before, while your members if I understand you correctly have been consistently competing in various events, so while your clan may have improved, our players are a bit rusty. This is why i think the current skill difference between the very top clans like 20 WG GG Apex is very subtle. No doubt these 4 are the top of the game.

By the way - as for the invitation to 20 - it's more complicated than this. It's not only bout skill but also down to friendly relations between members of the two clans.

Edited 9/3/2015 06:11:55

Skill changes, especially when you don't play or play just a little (and others are active). I used to beat apex players in 1vs1 about 55% of time before I had a break, now I have average win rate closer to 40%. I got worse, and/or they got much better, I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure the same applies to other players.

So, I think the reason for this disagreement is that it's hard to measure accurately how good a clan is if it's not so active. Are they still as good as they used to be or not anymore? Are they still better then players who played / improved in the meantime?

Also, [20] have way more than just 2 "not-completely-retired" members, but based on last year, is there anything that makes them really one of the top clans? I'm not saying they are not, I'm saying there is not much to support that claim (I think), which again makes their rating a bit moot.

Personally, I think depending on the criteria you have to say one (or few/all) of the 4 (20 WG GG Apex) are best.
I don't think you can say that about any other clan.
Claiming your criteria are better than someone else is kind of pointless.

@Fridge: Not according to your points won within the last 30 days across members. No one but 2 crosses over 75k points. That's not compelling activity :P

I'm glad we can at least agree it's ignorant to say 20 is way better than Apex/GG/WG. It's completely disregarding the growth Apex/GG/WG have seen vs 20 in the past year.

I just wish they had stayed together and competed in league A so we could have a nice 4 way battle.

What also makes these discussions messy are the dual clan people. Where do you count them when comparing the best clans?

Also, Turtle is missing a lot of ladder players in his account of WG page 1. He mentions 1v1 and Seasonal ladders, but fails to mention Summer on RT ladder or Ineffable and Oh Noes that held the 2v2 #1 for a while.

Edited 9/3/2015 13:57:13

Lobsterman is back so Ahol is the best again.

Damn, we're gonna lose season 7 of clan league to the lobster.

@Chris I felt like I should only write "so much".... Also Ineffable has taken #1 several times in past few monts.

Hey there! I'm looking forward to 6 - 10 places analysis! Is that going to happen? :)

Ya.... When I get the time.

bump so that master turtle can be reminded that this thread exists when he has time.

Next week? lol

Why doesn't someone make their own list on here in the meantime? You don't have to justify it it make a write up but ya know...

Feel free to scrutinise and dispute my list as much as you want, but here's my stab at it. Based on how skillful I think they are strategically. Sorry role players, perhaps the best diplo clans can happen later, but that is hard to judge.

1. Apex
2. |GG|
3. WG
4. AHoL
5. [Lynx]
6. Blitz
7. [20]
8. Masters
9. WarLighters
10. French Community
11. [XS]
12. Icelandic Turtles
13. V.I.W.
14. REGL
15. {101st}
16. Stahlgewittern
17. ILLUMINATI ▲
18. M'Hunters
19. Yin-Yang
20. LEA
21. Juggernauts
22. CORP
23. {Olympus}
24. FBG
25. VS
26. SNinja
27. Statisticians
28. BR
29. The Poon Squad
30. Clan Español