Best The Rookie characters

Lucy Chen wins 74% of her duels and tops The Rookie ranking ahead of Tim Bradford.

The sharpest divide in the ranking opens between Angela Lopez and John Nolan. 157 ELO points separate third from fourth, a gap that signals a clear consensus on the show's top tier. Lucy Chen edges out Tim Bradford by 21 points, while Bradford himself holds off Angela Lopez by 11. The podium is tight, with Chen at 1512, Bradford at 1491 and Lopez at 1480, yet all three sit comfortably above the rest. At the bottom, Quigley Smitty languishes at 857 ELO with a 27% win rate, trailed closely by James Murray at 939 and Talia Bishop at 1015. The ranking's lower ranks suggest these characters struggle to connect with the community, their positions hardened by thousands of duels that have not favored them.

26942 duels from 556 players have shaped this ranking of 16 contenders, last updated on 12 October 2026. Each matchup refines the standings, and the race between Chen and Bradford remains close enough that a few dozen votes could shift the lead. New duels continue to test the community's loyalties, and every vote counts toward the next update. Cast your own ballot and see where your favorite character stands.

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 →