THE TWO TOWERS NETWORK
Boromir the 88th
Pre-Friendlies Power Rankings
This year the TTN staff has created a system that we believe will serve as a better measurement of team performances. We've been working on a point-system that accurately ranked teams, and also accurately determine winners in head-to-head match ups.
The formula we are using is quite a simple one, but we will not bore you with the full details. If any readers are interested you can contact me and receive full disclosure of how we will calculate the Power Rankings after every round of play. Since, TTN, firmly believes in transparency.
The basics, however, to determine how many points a team wins in any individual match:
P x I x S x B = match points
P= Points won in the match (3 for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss. So, teams that keep losing their points will remain stagnant and likely decline over time. Teams that keep winning, keep earning more points, translating to higher power ranking).
I = Importance of match. (We will use for friendlies = 1, group stage = 2, 1st playoff round =3,...etc)
S = Strength of opponent. (Simply put if you beat teams near the top of the rankings, you will earn more points than if you beat teams lower).
B = Bonus. (Win by 2 or more goals, and there is a x1.5 bonus)
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Let's get to the first TTN power-rankings. We will note, it was extremely hard putting this first one together. Primarily we took the team's salary into account, because in theory, a higher salary should mean the better team. However, we all know it rarely works out that simply. And when I also consider some teams to have over-paid for talent, you may see instances where teams with a lower payroll are ranked above more expensive payrolls.
This was primarily a judgement call, just trying to speculate and compare rosters, plus taking into account performances from previous Arda Cups. We have to start somewhere, but since it is primarily the speculation of 1 writer, we will re-calculate the points after every round, on the off-chance that we seriously overrated (or underated) a team in the beginning. And this way, any type of inaccuracy in our early speculation (afterall, no one has seen any matches yet!) is minimized.
So here are
Boromir the 88th's Pre-friendly Power rankings.
Key -
Rank. Team name (salary) - Team points
1. FC Valinor (113) - 32
2. Valimar (117) - 31
3. Armenolos (108) - 30
4. Angband (101) - 29
5. Real Valinor (104) - 28
6. The Sea (108) - 27
7. Eriador (99) - 26
8. AC Beleriand (96) - 25
9. Erebor (103) - 24
10. Rohan (94) - 23
11. Nargothrond (95) - 22
12. Anfauglith (93) - 21
13. Imladris (88) - 20
14. Hithlum (86) - 19
15. Doriath (84) - 18
16. Tirion (83) - 17
17. Dwarves U. (89) - 16
18. Wilderland (85) - 15
19. The Havens (84) - 14
20. Gondor (84) - 13
21. Minas Tirith (88) - 12
22. Gondolin (83) - 11
23. Anduin (80) - 10
24. Shire-Bree (72) - 9
25. Inter Beleriand (70) - 8
26. Tol In Gaurhoth (68) - 7
27. Isengard (74) - 6
28. Barad-dur (66) - 5
29. Arnor (71) - 4
30. Mordor (58) - 3
31. Misty Mountains (62) - 2
32. The Downer (37) - 1
Once we were in the 80-100 million team salary range it became extremely hard to rank them. Since at that point it was more of an eye-test, and subjective "who looks sexier?" to us.
You need a starting point, but with no matches to judge the relative strength of teams it's a difficult determination. But once friendlies start, and teams gets matches under their belts, we want the results and performance to determine the power-rankings. Therefore, the points a team has now, are just to start, and will get re-calculated, since a team's true rank would be determined by how the their tangible results and
not influenced by how they were ranked before playing any matches.