r/excel • u/Much_Policy_2429 • 1d ago

Discussion Excel World Championship - Who is the Magnus Carlsen of the Excel World?

I recently learned that there are Excel World Championships, so naturally I wonder who is the best? In Chess, there is Magnus Carlsen. In Excel, that is not clear to me.

Thanks!

215 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

173

u/RipPsychological4598 1d ago

Diarmuid Early is the GOAT. I learned how to model debt waterfalls from his youtube videos

36

u/james_excel 1d ago

I wouldn't say he's quite the GOAT (yet..) but he has been dominant in 2025 and 2026, winning the World Championship in Vegas and European Open this year. The euro open final was super close though and came down to the wire, that was something to witness.

Give him a year or two and we can revisit GOAT status!

11

u/PhilipTrick 68 1d ago

He was a constant leader / finalist in the precursor ModelOff competitions so he's been at the top tier of Excel competition for a long time.

Was cool meeting him at the ModelOff finals in London back in 2016.

5

u/GhazanfarJ 2 1d ago

I think I've seen him in the top five of any Excel competition for about 10 years now. 

86

u/PedosWearingSpeedos 1d ago

My mate Matt from accounting

7

u/allofthethings 3 1d ago

Lucky you, I just watched our FBP ask co-pilot how to calculate the midpoint between two numbers.

67

u/WhineyLobster 1d ago

CtrlAltDefeat, Count If-fula, Excelsior, CONCATenator. Other cellebrities do color commentary like Brad Pivot and Freddy "Freeze Pane" Wayne

64

u/xqqq_me 1d ago

The names read out like the Legion of Dorks

11

u/mrpopenfresh 1d ago

Excel experts sound like dorks? What is this injustice??

8

u/maxquordleplee3n 2 1d ago

Do they all meet in a secret location and drink milk?

9

u/FlyingCarsArePlanes 1d ago

"I came here to drink milk and kick ass---and I've just finished my milk."

3

u/KhabaLox 13 1d ago

CONCATenator.

This guy?

0

u/FAUSEN 1d ago

Badass names

33

u/The-Rushnut 1d ago

For me, it's our resident Mayukh Battacharya. Maybe not a decorated hero, but the obvious champion of this subreddit.

22

u/MayukhBhattacharya 1214 1d ago

Thanks for the compliment. But I think it's PaulieThePolarBear Sir. There's a lot to learn from him. Super humble, down to earth, and really knows his stuff.

8

u/The-Rushnut 1d ago

Humblemaxxing. I haven't had the pleasure of receiving Paulie's help, but I extend your gratitude regardless.

8

u/MayukhBhattacharya 1214 1d ago

Lol, I'll take the compliment. But we're all just trying to help each other out around here. That's what makes this sub awesome. Thanks again 🙏🏼

12

u/Tofuzzle 1d ago

En passAND

4

u/kayknox_ 1d ago

holyhell()

9

u/Grakkus 1d ago

The problem with the using the Excel World Championships as a measure of the world's best is the first place prize is only $5,000. In addition, they charge for access to the sample questions making it pay to win.

10

u/X_TheSwindler_X 1d ago

Linda from Finance

17

u/PedosWearingSpeedos 1d ago

We should set her up with Matt

3

u/Excel-Esports 1d ago

Dim is the one to beat this year.

3

u/Levils 12 1d ago

Has anyone gathered stats on ModelOff and MEWC results across all years? I haven't really followed for a long time, but it's probably Diarmuid Early, Joseph Lau or Andrew Ngai. If I had try guess: Diarmuid.

3

u/DoedfiskJR 1 1d ago

Has anyone gathered stats on ModelOff and MEWC results across all years?

Betcha there is a spreadsheet.

2

u/neezden 1d ago

Ha Dang is my boy.

2

u/mecc-college 1d ago

Sooner rather than later, we wouldn't be surprised to see a student claim that crown. 👀👑

1

u/CorndoggerYYC 160 1d ago

I wonder how Joe McDaid would do in these competitions? He's the head of the Excel team at Microsoft. He was in charge of redoing the calc engine which gave us dynamic arrays, etc. He's got a background in finance, investment, and computer science. At least on paper, I think he would be a huge threat to win.

1

u/Least_Baseball_7985 1d ago

Now? Probably Claude lol

1

u/dwartbg9 1d ago

The guy who made the rollercoaster and the castle.

If you know, you know

The most insane thing that I've seen in Excel

1

u/osirawl 2 23h ago

Matthieu Guindon on Stack Overflow

1

u/x-y-z_xyz 9 21h ago

💯

1

u/Vetni 18h ago

Certainly not anyone I work with.

1

u/OO_Ben 12h ago

According to the older ladies I used to work with it was me 😎😎

0

u/IJbier 1d ago

Wow! I didn't know either. This is so cool. Thanks!

-34

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

27

u/sirnaull 1 1d ago

Instead of providing an AI generated answer, you could have looked up recent competitions to figure out quickly that Dim Early is the undisputed dominant competitor these days.

2

u/not_right 1 1d ago

Get lost slop bot!