Best One Piece emperors

231 ELO points separate Red-Haired Shanks from Monkey D. Luffy at the top of the One Piece ranking, after 600 duels.

The podium breaks sharply between ranks 2 and 3, where Monkey D. Luffy holds a 231 ELO advantage over Marshall D. Teach. Red-Haired Shanks claims first place with 1379 ELO and wins 74% of his duels, displaying the dominance voters expect from a true Emperor. Luffy follows at 1355 ELO with a 68% win rate across 28 duels, proving his status holds weight despite being the newest addition to the group. Marshall D. Teach lands third with 1124 ELO, managing only 40% of his matchups over 30 duels, a middling performance that suggests voters remain divided on his legitimacy. At the bottom, Buggy the Clown sits at rank 4 with 924 ELO and a 10% win rate over 21 duels, a result that confirms the community views his Emperor title as the product of circumstance rather than merit. The gap between credible threat and comic relief could not be clearer.

This ranking draws from 600 duels between 4 contenders, voted on by 134 players as of 10 October 2026. The data captures how fans weigh legitimate strength against the circumstances that elevated each character to Emperor. Head to VAINKEURZ to cast your own vote and decide which new Emperor deserves the title most.

Updated on October 10, 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 →