What's up with the Rank X leaderboard this season?

[Yosi Spring]

So Chill Season 2023 was probably the most unbalanced leaderboard of all time, with Melon hitting 5000 power and being >850 power higher than 2nd place. In Takoroka, the top powers were 5006, 4310, 4540, and 4361. In Tentatek, the top powers were 3301, 3321, 3372, 3297.

Now if we look at the current standings for Fresh Season 2024, things are WAY different. Top powers in Takoroka are 4159, 4068, 4279, and 4089. The top powers in Tentatek are 4268, 3611, 4028, 3803.

This is weird to see, because as far as I know the Japanese scene has always had much higher X powers than the rest of the world (due to having more players and being more skilled in general). The smaller gap now could be due to Japanese players switching over to Tentatek this season, or maybe players in Tentatek grinding more this season and players in Takoroka grinding less?

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

gem released a really insightful video on this.
I think it's because at higher x powers, it's less about skill and more about how much you grind, so the top players in Japan (who were more skilled but grinded about the same amount) now have similar x powers to the top players in America (who were less skilled but grinded about the same amount)