Best Sword Art Online characters

Kazuto (Kirito) leads the Sword Art Online ranking with 1588 ELO points over 89 duels, ahead of Asuna and Alice.

The top three sit relatively close, but the ranking opens up below the podium. A gap of 67 ELO points separates Alice from Eugeo at ranks 3 and 4, the sharpest divide in the upper tier. Kazuto (Kirito) wins 74% of his duels, while Asuna follows closely with 1553 ELO and a 73% win rate across 67 matchups. Alice holds third place with 1508 ELO, maintaining a 66% win rate over 88 duels. Suguha shares Eugeo's 1441 ELO score at rank 5, though she has faced considerably more duels at 119 compared to his 74. At the other end, Chudelkin languishes at rank 78 with 816 ELO and a win rate of just 16%, marking him as the community's least favorite. Oberon and Kuradeel round out the bottom three with 893 and 909 ELO respectively, suggesting fans harbor little affection for the series' antagonists.

The ranking draws on 9541 duels submitted by 29 players across 78 contenders, updated on 12 October 2026. Whether you lean toward the iconic leads or the supporting cast from Aincrad to Underworld, VAINKEURZ invites you to vote in head-to-head duels and shape the Sword Art Online character hierarchy with your own choices.

Updated on October 12, 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 →