ASL20 Pre-season Tier List ranking!

On August 11 2025 12:11 zutt0 wrote:
I ran the stats on how people have been performing over the last 9 months based on Eloboard. Here is my list and I'll talk through some of the big discrepancies and also some of the big changes from my evaluations in previous seasons.

S: Soulkey, Snow
A: Light, Queen, Rush, Mini, Best, Sharp
B: Hero, Soma, Bisu, Jaedong
C: Effort, Barracks, Speed, Royal
D: Stork, JyJ, sSak, Mong
E: Larva, BTS, Calm ,TY
F: Ample, Paralyze, Hyun, Saber

I look at head-to-heads and victory rates against the top players of each race. I define the top players as follows:
Z: Soulkey, hero, Action, Queen, Jaedong, Effort, Soma
T: Flash, Light, Rush, Sharp, Royal, JyJ, Barracks, Speed, Ssak
P: Snow, Best, Mini, Bisu, Rain, Stork

Discrepancies:
I think Snow and Soulkey are actually about even and are clearly the best two players. Both are basically untouchable against Terran and they're about equally good against Protoss. Soulkey is slightly better in the head-to-head, which is important, but I'd actually trust Snow more against top Zergs. Snow has a 53.6% win rate while SK has a 48% win rate. I'd still favor Soulkey, because he's so clutch and so good in tournament player, but unlike last season, where I'd favor Soulkey over the field, I think they're pretty close this time.

I understand the hype about Soma, but I'm not quite ready to get on the train. He's sitting at a 43% win rate against top Ts. Part of that is that he's played Flash a lot, who seems to be the best TvZ player by far, but he is also struggling against Rush (1 win, 7 losses). He's also struggling against Mini (5 wins, 10 losses). He's doing very well against Bisu (12 wins, 7 losses) and Best (7 wins, 1 loss). He's clearly a very good player, but I don't have enough evidence to conclude whether he's as good as, say, Rush or Mini. I do have enough evidence to conclude he's probably not as good as Soulkey and Snow. They have dominating records against basically everyone. I also think he's pretty clearly behind Light.

I like Royal as a player, but I don't think Royal can be in the same conversation as Sharp or Mini. I don't think he's even as good as Jaedong. He's 45% against top Zs; for reference, Light is 59%, Sharp is 54%, Rush is 57%, and Barracks is 48%. His TvT also lags behind top Terrans at about 40%, with losing records against Sharp, Barracks, Speed, and a pretty sad 7 wins, 14 losses against Rush. His TvP is a more respectable 39%, about even with Rush, Sharp, and Speed but well behind Light (Barracks is also much better, but Barracks cheats a little because he plays Stork a lot more than the other guys).

There are some question marks around Effort due to small sample size, but from what I can see, he's not great. He's 0 and 5 against Rush and has an abysmal 4 wins and 20 losses against Barracks, although he's whooping on sSak and Royal. He's also getting walloped by Mini: 3 wins and 13 losses. Worst of all, he's struggling against Mong, who is not a top Terrans but whose stats I have because he's in the tournament. 5 wins, 11 losses against Mong.

Larva, as best I can tell, is not any good. 4 and 14 against Sharp. 5 and 30 against Rush. 8 and 22 against Barracks. His only win against a top Protoss is a lone win against Stork.

Ample has too small of a sample for me to gauge reliably. He has some encouraging signs. He's 2-0 against Best and 3-2 against Rush, so he's defintely capable of getting some big wins. But it's hard for me to favor over TY, who has some good wins with larger sample sizes: 7-5 against Soma, 6-7 against Jaedong, 4-2 against Barracks.

Changes:
I agree that Hero has slipped a lot. His ZvZ continues to be a weakpoint. He's at an appalling 36% against top Zs. What's new is that he's also struggling against Ts: 45%, which is Jaedong-level. He's getting smashed by Sharp, Rush, Light, and Flash, and going about even with Royal and Barracks. He's still about tied with Soulkey for best ZvPer, so I'm not quite as low on him as you are, but it looks like it's not what he once was.

I'm even lower on JyJ than you are. His TvP has long been an issue, and it's at 27% right now. The difference is he used to be great at TvZ, but now he's at 38% - the very lowest among top Terrans. He'd be lucky to make it to the Ro16.

Jaedong is actually doing extremely well. He seems to be the third best ZvZer after Queen and Soma. He struggles against Light and Rush but does very well against the rest of the Ts. He's losing to Snow but is even or better against all of the other Ps, similar to Queen. I would not be surprised if Jaedong made Round of 8 again.

I'm high on Mong for this season. He has a much better TvZ matchup spread than I would expect. 4-5 against hero, 4-5 against Action, 11-5 against Effort (although a bad 3-9 against Jaedong). I don't have enough TvT or TvP for him to say anything especially confidently there, but he's historically been solid at those matchups.. Getting stuck with Rush and Jaedong in his group is a bad pull for him, but in terms of skill, I think he's a lot better than he has been in recent seasons.

On August 11 2025 16:34 prosatan wrote:
God damn , i cannot upload the image

I'll write them!! :

S: Light , Queen , Sk , Snow , Mini

A: Bisu , Best , hero , Rush , Soma

B: JD, Royal , Sharp , Speed , Rax

C: Jyj , Stork , TY , sSak, Larva , effort

D:Ample , BTS, Mong

E: Calm , Hyun

F: Saber , Paralyze

On August 11 2025 08:36 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
As is tradition, a tier list to rank the players based on their perceived power levels going into the Round of 24 of ASL20!

Link: Click here

My list based on their current performances
+ Show Spoiler +

On August 11 2025 19:39 TMNT wrote:

Light has been offline for almost a month. How can you rate him at A? Or he is always A by default regardless of inactivity?

On August 11 2025 19:39 TMNT wrote:

Light has been offline for almost a month. How can you rate him at A? Or he is always A by default regardless of inactivity?

On August 11 2025 23:30 pseudosignal wrote:
Bisu has underperformed for like 12 straight ASLs and people still rate him so highly :/

On August 11 2025 23:30 pseudosignal wrote:
Bisu has underperformed for like 12 straight ASLs and people still rate him so highly :/

On August 11 2025 23:30 pseudosignal wrote:
Bisu has underperformed for like 12 straight ASLs and people still rate him so highly :/

On August 11 2025 23:23 Ideas wrote:
What is the consensus on map pool(if any)? Seems about as balanced as last season? I remember in a jinjin vid that flash mentioned soulkey complaining about balance this season, but from what I can tell it's even worse for protoss?

From what I can tell:
Dominator: mostly balanced
Radeon: mostly balanced
Metropolis: feels slightly imba to me (T > Z, Z > P, P > T)
Pole Star: about the same as metropolis
Litmus: seems ok for Z, bad for P ? (I swear any map with backdoor to main is always imba)
Screaming Sea: seems great for Z all around?

edit - and based on the prelims, seems pretty bad for protoss?

On August 12 2025 22:26 TMNT wrote:

Make of this what you will

Map - PvZ win rate (approx no. of games) - PvT win rate (approx no. of games)
Radeon - 48.1% (1500) - 47.3% (1700)
Dominator - 45.9% (700) - 49.5% (800)
Pole Star - 46.8% (400) - 45.6% (400)
Metropolis - 47.2% (400) - 44.5% (350)
Litmus - 38.2% (34) - 40% (25)
KnockOut - 51.4% (35) - 45.5% (33)
Uldolmok - 50% (18) - 25% (20)

But for me, the early call that the new map pool is anti-Soulkey is just false narrative. As usual, Protoss is fucked over. And I have to repeat, modern standard 4p maps inherently disfavor Protoss in both matchups, but it has been accepted as the norm.

On August 11 2025 12:11 zutt0 wrote:
I ran the stats on how people have been performing over the last 9 months based on Eloboard. Here is my list and I'll talk through some of the big discrepancies and also some of the big changes from my evaluations in previous seasons.

S: Soulkey, Snow
A: Light, Queen, Rush, Mini, Best, Sharp
B: Hero, Soma,

On August 13 2025 01:03 iopq wrote:


what kind of drugs do you have to be on to rank Sharp over Soma, lol

On August 13 2025 05:53 zutt0 wrote:


I'll give you the matchup spread and you tell me if it's obvious that one of these players is significantly better than the other:

Soulkey:
Player A: 1-2
Player B: 3-6

Hero:
Player A: 1-0
Player B: 8-2

Queen:
Player A: 4-2
Player B: 25-24

Light:
Player A: 0-1
Player B: 1-2

Rush:
Player A: 1-7
Player B: 2-3

Royal:
Player A: 11-7
Player B: 5-3

Snow:
Player A: 2-3
Player B: 3-15

Best
Player A: 7-1
Player B: 10-12

Mini:
Player A: 5-10
Player B: 12-22

I'd say that Player A is clearly better against Protoss, Player B is better against Teran, and they're pretty comparable against Zerg.

But the big difference is that I have a lot more data for Player B than for Player B. I'm confident Player B will perform quite well. Player B isn't going to win the tournament, but they definitely have a solid shot of getting into Ro8 and, with a little luck, Ro4. There is a chance Player A is going to do really well and make the finals, but there's also a chance they drown in Ro24 or early in Ro16.

If I gave you the choice of two bets, one that's an even chance between getting $10, $55, and $100 and another that gives you $55 for sure, most people would take the sure thing. That's how I feel about Sharp versus Soma. They look about equal to me in expected value, but Sharp is much more of a known quantity, so I put him ahead.

On August 13 2025 06:43 ThunderJunk wrote:
Bisu is really, really good. I think he's the 3rd best protoss behind Snow and Best. He's also my favorite protoss.

That said, I think he's the 3rd best protoss the way Artosis defines what's "good". Mini is worse than Bisu on average, but because there's more gimmicky variance in his play, he can win ASL, whereas Bisu is just extremely consistent at getting to the Ro8 before he gets sniped by someone like Hero.

I think Mini has the very best probe micro for defending FFE against hydra bust.

Rain impressed me by actually making Snow bleed in PvP, which Bisu couldn't really.

Stork started actually playing strategies that aren't blind 2-base carriers sometime last year, and since then I put him as 5th best protoss.

On August 13 2025 05:53 zutt0 wrote:


I'll give you the matchup spread and you tell me if it's obvious that one of these players is significantly better than the other:

Soulkey:
Player A: 1-2
Player B: 3-6

Hero:
Player A: 1-0
Player B: 8-2

Queen:
Player A: 4-2
Player B: 25-24

Light:
Player A: 0-1
Player B: 1-2

Rush:
Player A: 1-7
Player B: 2-3

Royal:
Player A: 11-7
Player B: 5-3

Snow:
Player A: 2-3
Player B: 3-15

Best
Player A: 7-1
Player B: 10-12

Mini:
Player A: 5-10
Player B: 12-22

I'd say that Player A is clearly better against Protoss, Player B is better against Teran, and they're pretty comparable against Zerg.

But the big difference is that I have a lot more data for Player B than for Player B. I'm confident Player B will perform quite well. Player B isn't going to win the tournament, but they definitely have a solid shot of getting into Ro8 and, with a little luck, Ro4. There is a chance Player A is going to do really well and make the finals, but there's also a chance they drown in Ro24 or early in Ro16.

If I gave you the choice of two bets, one that's an even chance between getting $10, $55, and $100 and another that gives you $55 for sure, most people would take the sure thing. That's how I feel about Sharp versus Soma. They look about equal to me in expected value, but Sharp is much more of a known quantity, so I put him ahead.

On August 16 2025 11:59 bw2ku wrote:
Anyone putting Soulkey lower than S tier is completely delusional.

S: SK (how many ASL's in a row does he need to win to make a point?)
A: Snow, Light, Best, Mini, Hero
B: Rush, Bisu, Royal, Soma
C: JD, Sharp, Speed, Queen, JYJ, Action
D: Effort, Barracks, Mong, Ssak, Larva, Stork, Shuttle

Soma hasn't been back long enough to place super accurately. Anyone else not mentioned would be E or lower.

On August 16 2025 14:15 pseudosignal wrote:

Action/Shuttle aren't in this ASL.

Bisu/Rush same tier?

On August 13 2025 05:53 zutt0 wrote:


I'll give you the matchup spread and you tell me if it's obvious that one of these players is significantly better than the other:

Soulkey:
Player A: 1-2
Player B: 3-6

Hero:
Player A: 1-0
Player B: 8-2

Queen:
Player A: 4-2
Player B: 25-24

Light:
Player A: 0-1
Player B: 1-2

Rush:
Player A: 1-7
Player B: 2-3

Royal:
Player A: 11-7
Player B: 5-3

Snow:
Player A: 2-3
Player B: 3-15

Best
Player A: 7-1
Player B: 10-12

Mini:
Player A: 5-10
Player B: 12-22

I'd say that Player A is clearly better against Protoss, Player B is better against Teran, and they're pretty comparable against Zerg.

But the big difference is that I have a lot more data for Player B than for Player B. I'm confident Player B will perform quite well. Player B isn't going to win the tournament, but they definitely have a solid shot of getting into Ro8 and, with a little luck, Ro4. There is a chance Player A is going to do really well and make the finals, but there's also a chance they drown in Ro24 or early in Ro16.

If I gave you the choice of two bets, one that's an even chance between getting $10, $55, and $100 and another that gives you $55 for sure, most people would take the sure thing. That's how I feel about Sharp versus Soma. They look about equal to me in expected value, but Sharp is much more of a known quantity, so I put him ahead.

On August 11 2025 08:36 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
As is tradition, a tier list to rank the players based on their perceived power levels going into the Round of 24 of ASL20!

Link: Click here

My list based on their current performances
+ Show Spoiler +