Best Stranger Things characters

Maxine Mayfield wins 72% of her duels and tops the Stranger Things ranking ahead of Dustin Henderson.

The 51 ELO points separating Maxine Mayfield from Dustin Henderson mark the sharpest gap in the top tier of this ranking. Steve Harrington holds third place with 1466 points, trailing Dustin by just 9 points. Eleven, the show's telekinetic protagonist, lands at fourth with 1445 points after 343 duels, while Robin Buckley rounds out the top 5 at 1425. Maxine's 1526 points and 72% win rate confirm her status as the community's clear favorite. At the opposite end, Ted Wheeler sits at the bottom with 876 points, narrowly behind Jason Carver at 885. Martin Brenner occupies rank 30 with 950 points, suggesting that antagonists struggle to win favor with voters. The contrast between the beloved characters at the top and the divisive figures at the bottom reveals how strongly the community distinguishes heroes from villains.

This ranking draws on 4529 duels involving 37 players across 32 contenders, last updated on 12 October 2026. VAINKEURZ builds its rankings through direct head-to-head matchups, letting the community decide which characters resonate most. Vote now to shift the standings or confirm the current hierarchy.

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 →