RadoN’s thousand is a series of articles in which I share my take on an esports topic of my choosing in about a thousand words.This entry attempts to explain the recurrence of same questions across all new esports titles and elaborates on author's usage of tier lists.

One of the hottest debate topics among the followers of any sort of competition is that of who are the finest practitioners of the discipline. Who's the best? Who could give them a run for their money? In what areas does each of the top competitors excel? And on, and on it goes, seemingly never stopping and having the power to turn the mental state of otherwise reasonable adults into that of bickering children.

Esports is no way an exception to this.

Unlike many other activities, however, our own niche hasn't been around long enough to build-up a dictionary of terms with well-defined meanings. In traditional sports, whenever a new fan comes along, they are accepting of the reality that they'll have to learn the jargon and other basics from the more seasoned followers. If they are resistant to the idea, discussions often see them pushed aside as their lack of understanding is obvious to the initiated. The ones who learn the link though, will in turn be able to impart the knowledge to the next wave of newcomers -- in a manner not dissimilar to the famous monkeys and a ladder experiment.

In part due to its adolescence, esports can be found severely lacking in this department. Some of the newcomers are similarly eager to learn from those who've arrived before them, but a consensus is often lacking, even on the basic terms and ideas. Furthermore, unlike traditional sports, during its brief time as an industry the esports audience has always experienced significant resets, whenever a new title rises to popularity. The older ones fizzle out of prominence with their respective game's lifespan as the game-to-play. By the time the collective understanding required to hold a proper discussion has accumulated, scenes are often on the decline. Over time fans leave and even though some of the audience carries over to the new titles, the vast majority is once again composed of newcomers and the cycle starts anew.

This is mostly based on a second hand knowledge of the veterans within the industry, but my brief time as a follower of several titles and historical research corroborates with it. With Overwatch becoming a home to fans from multiple genres and a wave of brand new esports fans, the situation has very much repeated itself once again.

What are the differences between online and offline play? Does offline really matter more? How do we know the journalists reporting on leaks aren't speculating or making up stuff? Spoilers for the next one, do strategic coaches need to be able to play at a high level?

As evident by the resurfacing reddit threads with questions about them, one such a topic, albeit not as controversial, is that of ranking teams and players in tier. For those who haven't the faintest idea what those are, tier lists are variations of regular ranking in which its author -- in addition to ranking -- makes a distinction between the levels of the competitors by putting them, as the name suggests, in different tiers.

A simple example: if the #4 through #9 ranked competitors play each other closely, even though some are better than others, they'll be put in the same tier. But if #8 and #9 fail to be competitive with the other four, they'll be put in a lower tier to indicate the discrepancy. As with regular rankings, it's up to an individual to select the criteria by which they determine who's better and where lies the line between the different levels. While that much is clear, discussions are plagued by different participants' criteria varying wildly and never getting brought up. Some simply dub #1 through #10 ranked teams tier 1, while others call the teams attending the biggest offline events the same. Newcomers get confused and then are left wondering "How does the whole top500 players at the end of the season come into play with this?"

To clear up the confusion for what level of team belongs in which tier -- at least when it comes to my writing -- below can be found explanation for the tiering system I use in my content.

 S tier, is composed of the best of the best, often referred to as 'tier 1' or 'elite-level'. It is composed of teams who can contend for the trophy in any tournament they enter and, barring stylistic mismatches, any of them would be the favorite for a tournament in which they're the only S tier team. As they make deep tournament runs with regularity, a good day for such a squad means picking up the trophy.  A tier, also referred to as 'top tier' or 'tier 2' , contains dangerous dark horses and teams who will reach the playoffs of big events and occasionally make deep runs. However, excluding substantial overperformances and circumstances colluding in their favor, the squads in this tier won't pick-up trophies with S tier teams present as a competition. Some prefer to include these in their tier 1  B tier teams relate to A tier teams, the same way the latter relate to S tier teams. The possibility for them to deliver upsets exists, especially so when they are on the beneficial end of stylistic mismatch, but more often than not they'll be major underdogs whenever S and A tier teams are present at the event.

The rest of the list continues with tiers relating to each other in the same manner all the way down to teams who compete only in local or online events.

The same logic applies to players, level of play on specific maps and everything else one could possibly rank with a tier list. It is worth noting that -- as Duncan "Thorin" Shields often reminds himself -- a team being the best or in an S tier, doesn't automatically have S tier players in all of their positions, or play at an elite level on all maps.

So the next time you are arguing with someone on reddit about whether your team is tier 1 or not -- before getting angry -- remember to ask about what they mean by said tier. Rather than springing into defense for yours or looking to tear apart any other ranking, which doesn’t agree with it, keep an open mind.  This fosters not only healthier community and better environment for discussions, but also further development of our own thought process.

Photo credits: Blizzard, OGN

About the author: Hello readers, I go by the ID RadoN! I’ve been following different games within the esports industry ever since finding out about it in 2009. The titles that I follow closely for the time being are Overwatch, CS:GO and Quake Live, while occasionally dabbling in SFV, Dota 2 and LoL. If you wish to reach out, follow future content, or simply know more about my thoughts on esports and gaming, you can find me on twitter at @RadoNonfire.