Grandmaster is a term that refers to the player who has the most Metanet 0ths. There have been 8 grandmasters of the first version (including versions 1 through 1.4) as of February 2010, and the title has only changed hands approximately 13 times in N 1.4's 17-year history. The first official N grandmaster was tktktk, who held the title for 128 days before kaellstar briefly held the title. Soon after, in the later half of 2004, trib4lmaniac asserted his highscoring dominance to hold the title for a substantial period of time. The elusive title has been held by (in chronological order) tktktk, kaellstar, trib4lmaniac, johnny_faneca, Mr_Lim, xaelar, vankusss and, since April 12, 2012, EddyMataGallos.
Being an N grandmaster is considered to be the most prestigious title that can be earned by a player. The two most famous rivalries are generally considered to be trib4lmaniac vs. johnny_faneca, who purportedly traded the coveted overall 0th position five times in less than a year; the other major rivalry being between xaelar and vankusss, who have traded the position at least four times, with the gap being consistently narrow. The fourth occurrence was when Eddy was taking all of van's 0ths to take grandmaster spot for himself, while, at the same time, Last_FairyTail's scores were revealed to actually be xaelar's. (The combined effect of this was that xaelar regained 0th spot with 135 0ths when vankusss and Eddy both had 134 0ths each at the same time. That lasted about two hours before Eddy secured the grandmaster spot; however, one could argue that since Last_FairyTail was xaelar all along, there was no effective change in actual standings, aside from when Eddy took the lead.)
The term has also been applied to other versions of N, including N 2.0 and N++.
Grandmaster facts as of December 9, 2022:[]
- The current grandmaster is EddyMataGallos, with 448 0ths, and he has a 0th lead of 308 over the next-highest 0th holder, macrohenry.
- The longest consecutive amount of time as grandmaster is EddyMataGallos, with 3,894+ days (10 years, 7 months).
- The longest cumulative time spent as the grandmaster is EddyMataGallos, with 3,894+ days (10 years, 7 months).
- The most amount of 0ths ever held at one time by a player is EddyMataGallos, with approximately 490 0ths.
- The first grandmaster to reach 70,000 Total Game Score was johnny_faneca.
- The first grandmaster to reach 71,000 Total Game Score was Mr_Lim.
- The first of only two grandmasters to reach 71,500 Total Game Score was xaelar, followed by Eddy.
- The first and only grandmaster to reach 72,000 Total Game Score was EddyMataGallos on July 4, 2014. (macrohenry has also reached all of these milestones, although he has never been a grandmaster.)
- The grandmaster spot has reportedly changed hands at least 13 times.
- trib4lmaniac coined the term 'grandmaster' before ska brought the term into popular use several years later.
- Interestingly, all 8 grandmasters come from different countries: tktktk (USA), Kaellstar (Singapore), trib4lmaniac (England/UK), johnny_faneca (Portugual), Mr_Lim (Australia) xaelar (Germany), vankusss (Slovakia), and EddyMataGallos (Spain). While Eddy has 448 0ths, the total 0ths of all other former grandmasters is only 13, with 3 being ties on the maxed-out 59-0. The large margin is due to the evolution of highscoring as well as Eddy's sheer dominance.