Every year, I use a complex formula which factors in your historical sim stats (i.e., Win/Loss Percentage and Championships won) along with your WIS Championship (WISC) results from previous seasons to determine the pre-season ranking. The ranking itself is not a big deal. Basically, the ranking number next to your name is your official "Team Number" which will be used to determine which leagues you will be playing in.
For those that like to compare rankings from last year to this year, keep in mind that a myriad of factors go into the ranking, which will in some cases make you scratch your head.
For example, why is discodemo ranked 2nd and brianjw ranked 5th, despite the fact that brianjw finished 1st last year and discodemo finished 5th? Both played their first tournament last year. The reason is because, for people who played in just one tournament, the tournament results only carries 60% weight. Their lifetime sim stats is worth 40% and discodemo's sim stats (.596 win%, 36 titles is way better than brianjw's (.563 win%, 9 titles). Two tournaments = 80% while three or more tournaments = 100% weight. Also, your tournament "score" puts more emphasis on recent tournaments.
Here's another common situation. Why is this guy ranked ahead of me when he's never participated in the WISC before? Brand new WISC participants always present a challenge. Since they have no previous WISC results, I only have the historical sim stats to go on. If somebody only plays and crushes open leagues, his stats will look really good and he will rank fairly high. So it's possible for brand new players to rank ahead of moderately successful WIS Championship veterans. Similary, if a new player plays in alot of progressive leagues, his sim stats will be depressed and will be ranked lower than he should be.
Anyway,
Here are the 2012 Pre-Season Rankings.