Best The Apothecary Diaries characters

50 ELO points separate Maomao from Jinshi at the top of The Apothecary Diaries ranking, after 6603 duels.

Maomao claims the top spot with 1551 ELO points and a 79% win rate across 286 duels, establishing herself as the clear favorite among fans of the series. Jinshi follows at 1501 points with a 71% win rate over 318 duels, while Gyokuyou secures third place at 1477 points after 344 duels. The gap between Jinshi and Gyokuyou remains tight at 24 points, but the sharpest divide in the ranking appears just below the podium: 117 ELO points split Gyokuyou from Xiaolan at #4, who holds 1360 points. This drop marks the boundary between the series' most beloved leads and the rest of the cast. Lihaku rounds out the top 5 with 1350 points. At the bottom, Shisho struggles with just 836 ELO points and a 22% win rate across 282 duels, suggesting the character fails to resonate with fans as strongly as the imperial court's central figures.

The ranking aggregates 6603 duels submitted by 46 players across 34 contenders from the series. It was last updated on 11 October 2026. Head to VAINKEURZ to cast your own votes and shift the standings: every duel between two characters sharpens the community's verdict on who truly deserves the crown in this imperial mystery.

Updated on October 11, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →