The MAII rating serves a similar function to the Elo rating in chess, in that it allows players to gauge the strength of teams going into a tournament.

For a tournament to be eligible for consideration in the MAII rating, it must meet certain requirements: it must comply with IAMG decisions and regulations, and it must provide with an appeals mechanism. In addition, asynchronous tournaments cannot be considered for MAII ratings.

The IAMG must also be notified in advance: at least 90 days for international tournaments of a higher level than a national championship, at least 30 days for a national championship or any other tournament qualifying for the ChGK Worlds, at least 7 days for all other tournaments. Certain requirements must be met with respect to reporting, such as tournament staff, team rosters and results by question.

Also, for a tournament to be eligible for MAII rating, there must be at least 36 questions initially (questions may be removed via protest and remain rated) and the questions must not be played at previous rated tournaments more than 30 days ago.

For the purposes of calculating MAII ratings, a basic roster (thereafter, BR) can have up to 9 players, of which 1 is its captain. BRs are entered directly onto the IAMG's system at the start of the season, and additional players can only be added onto a BR mid-season by players who were on the BR at the start of the season.

If a player leaves or is removed from a BR, the player cannot return to the team's BR for the rest of the season. During a season, a player can't be part of more than two BRs.

For continuity, a team cannot add more than 3 players to a BR, and must have at least 2 players previously on that BR. A team that's continuous to several teams at the same time is considered continuous to the team whose name it uses; in the absence of such a name, it's not continuous to any team.

MAII ratings are updated every Thursday at midnight Moscow time. Teams with more than three players in its BR as of a given release are included in that release, and a rating can be suspended either if a team is disqualified or if the team hasn't played in two years.

Generally, in-person tournaments are weighted more heavily in a change in rating from a given tournament than strictly synchronous tournaments, which, in turn, are weighted more heavily than other synchronous tournaments. The other two primary factors are the strength of the field, as well as the place at a tournament.

In addition, a tournament is weighed less heavily if there are 3 legionnaires (players not included in the BR who compete for the team).