Competitive pinball players carry a rating — a single number that moves with every rated tournament — and that number places you in one of eight classes, from E up to Wizard. The system belongs to Match Play Events, the tournament software much of competitive pinball runs on. Here's what the classes are, exactly where the lines fall, and how the number underneath them actually behaves.
Match Play divides all rated players into eight classes by rating alone — no judges, no vibes, just the number:
The bands come straight from Match Play's own app — every player profile shows its class, with a “what’s this?” note listing the ranges. This page just puts them somewhere you can link to.
Match Play ratings use the Glicko algorithm — a descendant of chess Elo. The idea in one sentence: before you play someone, the system computes how expected a win is; then your rating moves by how much reality beat or missed that expectation. Knock off a much higher-rated player and you gain plenty; beat someone far below you and you gain almost nothing. It cuts both ways — underperform expectations and your rating goes down.
Three mechanics worth knowing, because they explain most confusion:
1. Ratings recompute daily, but results wait a week. Match Play processes each day's tournaments as one batch (a UTC calendar day), and a tournament enters the math seven days after it ends. One wrinkle: an American weeknight event usually wraps after midnight UTC — so a Tuesday-night result lands in Wednesday's batch and reaches your rating the following Wednesday. Not broken; by design.
2. Your rating only moves when you play. No decay, no rust penalty. A rating from your last event is your rating until the next one.
3. But your confidence does decay. Alongside the rating, Glicko tracks a rating deviation (RD) — how sure the system is about your number. Play often and RD shrinks (min 15); go quiet and it creeps up daily (max 75). Match Play also publishes a lower bound — your rating minus twice your RD — a "you're at least this good" floor. That's why your floor can drift down during a break while your rating hasn't moved at all: the system isn't demoting you, it's just less certain.
Your class is simply where your current rating falls on the ladder above. New players start at a provisional 1500 and their first events swing hard — that's the algorithm finding your level quickly, not judging you.
See your own rating, class, and a year of your climb — free, no account. House Ball charts your Match Play rating against the class ladder, your IFPA world ranking, your state championship race, and the whole scene's weekly numbers. Look up any player — including you.