Anyone can throw items into S, A, B, C, D, and F tier. Making a tier list that other people actually want to argue about is harder. Most tier lists fail in the same handful of ways. Here's how to avoid them.
Pick a category that's tight
The single biggest mistake in tier-list design is picking a category too wide for honest comparison. "Best video games" is a bad tier list because the field is everything ever made — your answer is whatever you happened to play, which means the list reveals more about your library than about the games. "Best Mario games" is a great tier list because the items share a frame: same protagonist, same publisher, same loose design lineage. Comparison is meaningful.
Good tier list categories share three traits:
- A clear universe. A franchise, an artist's discography, a decade in a genre, a specific sport's all-time greats.
- Roughly comparable items. All movies, all albums, all video games — not a mix. Don't tier "things from the 90s."
- Enough items. At least eight, usually no more than twenty. Fewer and the tiers feel sparse; more and the list becomes a slog.
Use real images
Tier lists are visual. They're not numerical rankings — they're spatial arrangements you stare at. A tier list with album covers, character portraits, and movie posters reads instantly. A tier list with text-only labels or emoji stand-ins reads like a database printout.
If you can't get a clean image for an item, that's a sign the item shouldn't be in the list. Either it's too obscure for the audience or it's too abstract to belong on a visual ranking. Cut it.
Earn your S tier
S tier is for items that are clearly above the pack — not just "good," but exceptional. The most common tier list mistake is stuffing S with anything you like, which leaves you with a top tier of seven items and an A tier of one. That's not a ranking; that's a favorites list.
A good rule: if more than 25% of your items are in S, your S tier is too generous. Move the borderline ones to A and reserve S for the actual peaks.
Earn your F tier
The flip side of an empty F tier is a list with no opinion. If everything is at least B-tier, you're not making a ranking — you're making a participation-trophy roster. The bottom tier should have something. It might be the genuinely bad entry in the franchise, the obscure deep cut, or the popular item you think is overrated. Whatever it is, name it.
The disagreement with someone else's F tier is half the reason tier lists exist. If yours is empty, you're not playing the game.
Don't over-tier
Six tiers (S, A, B, C, D, F) is the standard for a reason. Some online tools let you add more (S+, S, S-, A+, A, ...). Resist. Every additional tier increases the precision the format pretends to have, which undermines the whole point. Tier lists work because they admit ranking is fuzzy. Adding sub-tiers is just sneaking ordinal ranking back in.
Sort within tiers if you must, but it's optional
Within each tier, ordering items left-to-right by preference is fine. Most people don't bother, and that's also fine. The tier itself does most of the work. The internal order within S tier is rarely the part people argue about.
Share a screenshot
The cultural function of a tier list is the screenshot. The list is a document; the screenshot is the artifact. People send tier list screenshots to group chats, tweet them, post them in subreddits, and use them as the opening salvo in arguments. A tier list that's hard to screenshot — too tall, too cluttered, too small to read — fails its primary purpose.
Build accordingly: aim for items per row that fit on a phone screen, keep the design clean, make sure tier labels are visible at thumbnail size.
The two-second test
The final check on a tier list is whether someone can read it in two seconds. They should immediately see what's in S tier, what's in F tier, and roughly how the rest distributes. If they have to scrutinize labels or zoom in to identify items, the list is too complex.
The point of a tier list is to provoke reaction. Reaction happens fast. Build for the glance.