It was a busy year for the 1ACCWC, with 45 contests and 20 different people taking a weekly win.  If 2024 was defined by its intensity, 2025 was a season of endurance and precision. Cadence & Craft reflects the two forces that shaped this year’s leaderboard. Cadence represents the steady, 45-week rhythm of the competition—the persistence of those who showed up week after week to meet the blank page. Craft acknowledges the technical skill and nuance required to turn a simple word into a clever clue. Together, they tell the story of a year where a long-term commitment to the hobby was just as significant as the individual wins.

The final standings came down to a relatively small gap at the top, with only 18 points separating first and second place after nearly a year of cluing.

Here’s the Top 10 leaderboard for the year, showcasing the standout performances and highlighting an unforgettable season of competition. The full leaderboard is available Here

Congrats to our toppers. You can check out all the winning clues in our 1ACCWC HALL OF FAME.

A Breakdown of the Season

The Race for First Satyen Nabar finished the year in the lead. He participated in 35 out of 45 contests, winning and hence hosting 10 of them. His points total was helped significantly by his placement rate; he finished in the top 10 in all but three of the contests he entered.

Activity and Persistence Textrous and Ramki Krishnan stayed close to the lead through regular participation. Textrous won four times and missed one additional contest  but  kept his points steady. Ramki also showed a high level of consistency, placing in the top 10 in 31 of his 37 appearances. Had he entered as often as other toppers, the gap at the top might have been even smaller.

Different Paths to the Top 10 There were a few different ways people climbed the leaderboard this year:

The Win Specialists: @LowdownCryptic had 7 wins, the most after Satyen. Even with fewer points, those first-place finishes kept them comfortably in the top 5.

The Consistent Scorers: Manish Jhaveri reached 5th place with only one win, relying instead on 17 top-5 finishes. Similarly, Adman_i made it into the top 10 without a weekly win,  by placing in the top 10 consistently over the season.

 The 2025 season shows that while winning a weekly contest is a great boost, the final rankings were mostly decided by who could show up and place well week after week.

Hope all of you enjoyed the fantastic weekly contests. We are excited to announce that the 2026 season kicks off tomorrow and we will also be  launching our new 1ACCWC app on our site. We hope to make hosting, participating and managing the weekly contests even more seamless. I have also decided to fully take over the admin. aspects of the contest and will not be participating in 2026. Happy Cluing.