TFA is slashdot slang: the f'ing article It really depends on what you want the ranking to mean. If you want it to mean: "If all the players in the world play

TFA is slashdot slang: the f'ing article It really depends on what you want the ranking to mean. If you want it to mean: "If all the players in the world played in a tournament, what would the expected result be", then a normal Elo-like rating system (e.g. glicko-2) should be fine, because all the data available is from real tournaments, and it's not really feasible for players to strategically dodge bad matchups to pad their ratings. But one criticism TFA has of this method is matchup discrepancy. I'm not sure that's actually important (players choose their mains freely), but if it is can't you just correct for it? I think you're right that this correction would create an undesirable result. That just means that the matchup discrepancy criticism isn't good.