Ladder Starcraft 2
This is going to be a stream of me laddering with Zerg. This is my New Years Day StarCraft 2 Special. We are going to be grinding ladder and getting as far a.
Under the free to play model of StarCraft II, players will need to achieve ten 'first win of the day' awards to gain access to the ladder. RANKED FOR TEH WIN LADDER STATS CLANS DONATE NEWS ABOUT. Stat: Leagues Races Population. Mode: 1v1 Archon Team 2v2 Random 2v2 Team 3v3 Random 3v3 Team 4v4 Random 4v4. 1v1 Race Distribution. Current and historic sc2 race distribution (by league and region) for teams. The data is calculated by counting all teams ranked in a season. Since we introduced a new ladder with the launch of Heart of the Swarm, we’ve been continuously reviewing your feedback about league placement and the matchmaker in StarCraft II. In particular, recently we’ve seen some discussion in the community about the current state of the ladder.
About the Guide
The Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide is your complete guide to mastering Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm. Climb your way up the Battle.net ladder by learning from me, top 10 ranked Grandmaster player- Shokz. My in-depth guide will teach you how to master the unique playstyle of each race, (Terran, Protoss, and Zerg), which strategic build-orders to use and why, effective scouting and early harassment techniques, tips to increase your APM and much more. We are adding new Heart of the Swarm guides and strategies every day.
The Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide will teach you how to size up and shut down any opponent in any situation. The Shokz Guide demonstrates top strategies used by the pros so you can learn how to micro and macro like a Grandmaster player and
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Along with showing you the ins-and-outs of all three races and professional-level Battle.net strategies, the Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide comes with a complete campaign walkthrough, featuring step-by-step instructions that will help you unlock single-player achievements and prepare you for Battle.net ladder.
Greetings and welcome to this comprehensive Starcraft II ladder guide. This guide is designed to provide detailed information about the core functionality and design of the Starcraft II ladder, its leagues, and matchmaking. The information within this guide comes from empirical findings as well as Blizzard developers.
Bonus Pool
Overview
Immediately noticeable upon searching for a ladder match is your remaining Bonus Pool. Bonus Pool is a reservoir of points that are awarded only for wins, doubling your earned points per game until the Bonus Pool is exhausted.
The Bonus Pool accrues at a set rate for each league, whether playing or not.
For 1v1 or Random Team:
Grandmaster League — 90 points per week (1 per 112 minutes)
Master League — 90 points per week (1 per 112 minutes)
Diamond League — 52.2 points per week (1 per 193 minutes, 6 seconds).
Platinum League — 52.2 points per week (1 per 193 minutes, 6 seconds).
Gold League — 52.2 points per week (1 per 193 minutes, 6 seconds).
Silver League — 52.2 points per week (1 per 193 minutes, 6 seconds).
Bronze League — 52.2 points per week (1 per 193 minutes, 6 seconds).
Patch 1.3 adjusted this rate such that arranged 2v2 teams accrue at a 66% rate, and arranged 3v3 and 4v4 teams accrue at a 33% rate.
For arranged 2v2 teams:
Ladder Starcraft 2 Ladder
Master League — 60 points per week (1 per 168 minutes)
Diamond League — 34.8 points per week (1 per 289 minutes, 40 seconds)
Platinum League — 34.8 points per week (1 per 289 minutes, 40 seconds)
Gold League — 34.8 points per week (1 per 289 minutes, 40 seconds)
Silver League — 34.8 points per week (1 per 289 minutes, 40 seconds)
Bronze League — 34.8 points per week (1 per 289 minutes, 40 seconds)
For arranged 3v3 and 4v4 teams:
Master League — 30 points per week (1 per 336 minutes)
Diamond League — 17.4 points per week (1 per 579 minutes, 20 seconds)
Platinum League — 17.4 points per week (1 per 579 minutes, 20 seconds)
Gold League — 17.4 points per week (1 per 579 minutes, 20 seconds)
Silver League — 17.4 points per week (1 per 579 minutes, 20 seconds)
Bronze League — 17.4 points per week (1 per 579 minutes, 20 seconds)
Season 3 reduced the accrual rate for leagues below Master to 58% of the original rate in order to make spending bonus pool less daunting for casual players.
If you are demoted from Master league to a league with a reduced bonus pool accrual rate, you will be unable to earn bonus pool if the amount you have spent in Master league exceeds the amount that your new league has accumulated in total. Your bonus pool will then increase once the total accumulated bonus pool for your league surpasses the amount you spent while in Master league, though at the reduced below-Master rate. If you are promoted back into Master league, your unspent bonus pool will automatically increase to the total amount available to Master league minus the amount you have spent.
Because of this set rate and because it applies equally to everyone, this essentially acts as a global decay mechanism, separating active players from inactive ones. In a typical division, it’s expected that not all players will remain active, so this means that players who consume more Bonus Pool will typically rise above most of the players in their division, because the inactive players’ points are decaying relative to the active players.
We can therefore say that your displayed points minus your spent Bonus Pool are your “adjusted points”, or points that account for the inflation of the ladder as a result of Bonus Pool. That is, a player who has 2500 points but spent 2400 Bonus Pool to reach it (2500 - 2400 = 100 adjusted points) would have fewer adjusted points than a player who has 2400 points but spent 1200 Bonus Pool (1200 adjusted points), indicating that the latter would likely be a more skilled player.
Matchmaking Rating
Overview
At the heart of the system is a hidden value known as the matchmaking rating, or MMR for short. Matchmaking rating helps to ensure you play against players around your skill level and influences how many points you stand to gain or lose per match. Your points will drift toward your hidden MMR over a period of time, but because MMR is more volatile than points, your MMR is never cemented at a fixed value. For this reason, it is extraordinarily difficult to reverse engineer MMR from points.
Favored System
During the pre-game loading screen, as well as the post-game score screen, an amount of points are awarded or lost in accordance with what the system determines to be a favorable or unfavorable pairing. The Favored system compares your opponent’s hidden MMR with your adjusted points and calculates an amount of points that the game will be worth if you win or lose. If you stand to gain 0-4 points or lose 20-24, you are Favored; if you stand to gain 5-9 points or lose 15-19, you are Slightly Favored; if you stand to earn or lose 10-14 points, the Teams are Even. This value is independently calculated for each team and the results will not necessarily be zero sum.
For example, let’s say two players are matched together, Player A with 1500 MMR and 0 points and Player B with 1000 MMR and 0 points. Each player would see the other as Favored and would either earn many or lose few points depending on the outcome. If Player A won, because Player A’s MMR is larger than Player B’s by a fairly large margin, the MMRs of each player would not change very much. If Player B won, B’s MMR would rise and A’s MMR would fall to a greater extent than if A had won. The image below illustrates this.
The important thing to remember is that “favored” does not always mean “better” unless both players’ points have approximately reached their MMRs. Until that time, the “favored” indicator only serves to determine how many points a match is worth, and is not an indicator of skill.
Uncertainty
The system knows that players may perform at a level above or below their MMR. This is represented as a hidden variance factor called “uncertainty”. In conjunction with MMR, uncertainty determines your range of potential opponents, and that uncertainty can increase or decrease, thereby widening or narrowing that range, depending on the outcome of each game. If no player is in the queue who is within your uncertainty range, that range will gradually increase until a match is found. Uncertainty also determines how drastically MMR changes after a match. Generally speaking, the system becomes more uncertain about you when you beat a player whose MMR is higher or lose to one with a lower MMR, and less uncertain when you beat a player with a lower MMR or lose to one with higher MMR.
In the example above, the red line represents Player 1’s MMR. The curve colored blue represents the deviation of skill that this player may exhibit over time. Any player knows that there are external factors that may affect your play: playing on tilt, being unusually focused, getting distracted. The uncertainty curve is a graphical representation of that level of inconsistency. Players who are found to be close to your MMR (which would be near the peak of your curve) should statistically be a close match.
The example image above shows a second player that has been matched with the first. The overlapping area represents the statistical probability of a close match. Based upon the size of the overlapping area, if Player 1 is playing well and Player 2 is playing poorly, the outcome would be roughly 50-50. Because the overlapping area is small and Player 2’s MMR is higher, Player 2 would have a higher probability of winning. Player 2’s curve is wider, indicating that he is prone to more unpredictable outcomes than Player 1. If Player 2 wins, his MMR and curve will shift toward the right and his curve will become narrower, and Player 1’s MMR and curve will shift toward the left and his curve will also become narrower. If Player 1 wins, the two players’ MMRs will move closer together and their curves will overlap more. Player 1’s curve may expand because the outcome was unexpected and his curve was previously narrow, but Player 2’s curve may stay the same or even shrink because he is already unpredictable.
Starcraft 2 Ranking
Placement Matches
When starting a new team or game type, your MMR from other game types is used as a starting point for your first placement match. After the first placement match, that new team or game type’s MMR is separate. This allows players to immediately start playing against players close to their skill level from the very first game.
There are seven leagues: Grandmaster, Master, Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. It is possible to be placed in any league except for Grandmaster, which requires a promotion.
Team Matchmaking
It is believed that when a team is first formed, the MMRs of all members are averaged to form the team’s initial MMR during the first placement match. After that first placement match, the team’s MMR is separate per normal. For Random Teams, it is likely that the MMRs of all members are averaged first, then an opposing team with a similar MMR (based upon a degree of uncertainty) is located.
Promotion
By outperforming the rest of your league, it is possible to get promoted into a higher league. If you are in Bronze but playing against Gold players, you would expect to be promoted to Gold, but that doesn’t always happen immediately.
This is because the system requires a certain degree of confidence before players can be moved to a new league, otherwise they would bounce around from league to league too frequently for leagues to be meaningful. That confidence is measured in two ways:
First, the player must prove that he is capable of maintaining a certain level of skill. This is done by measuring the moving average of a player’s MMR. The below image should help demonstrate. When this moving average stabilizes within the confines of a division tier, a player can be promoted into that league. A player can also be instantly promoted to a league if his moving average exceeds the upper bound of that league.
The second factor is a “confidence buffer” that exists between leagues. That is, if a Bronze player is only slightly better than the lowest-rated Silver players according to his moving average, that is not reason alone to promote him, even though he has crossed into the Silver MMR region. If that player slumped, he would fall right back into Bronze within a couple of games, only to return to Silver a couple of games later, making his promotion far less meaningful. Leagues are sticky, therefore the moving average must cross beyond the destination league’s confidence buffer, cementing that player’s position within the higher league. In the picture above, the confidence buffer is represented by the yellow glow region.
Note that these are the only two factors required for promotion. Any in-game behaviors or statistics beyond winning, losing, and the opponent’s MMR are not relevant to the system.
Division Tiers
When you are placed in a league, you are placed into a division within that league. That division consists of up to 100 players who are intended to be roughly the same skill level as of the time of placement.
However, because the ladder population is broken down into quintiles (with the exception of Master league which siphons a percentage from Diamond), certain leagues encompass a broader range of skill than others. For example, a player who is ranked in the top 5% may be vastly better than a player who is ranked in the top 15%, and a player in the bottom 15% may be far better than a player in the bottom 5%. This means that divisions are not always equal in each league, which means the points earned in each division cannot always be directly compared with points in other divisions.
Grandmaster: One Tier
Master: One Tier
Diamond: 7 Tiers
- Tier 1: +150 from Master
- Tier 2: +213 from Master
- Tier 3: +276 from Master
- Tier 4: +339 from Master
- Tier 5: +402 from Master
- Tier 6: +465 from Master
- Tier 7: +528 from Master
Platinum: 3 Tiers, unknown offset
Gold: 2 Tiers, unknown offset
Silver: 3 Tiers, unknown offset per tier
Bronze: 7 Tiers, unknown point offset per tier
These tiers can be thought of as “slices” of a league, and in order to properly place a player into a new league, the player’s moving average must stabilize within one of the slices. This also means that at any given time, there are seven developing Bronze divisions, compared to Master league which generates divisions one at a time.
Note that without a global reference point such as the Blizzard weekly Top 200 list (existed before Grandmaster league), where these division modifiers are removed, it may not be possible to determine your division’s tier.
When you are moved from one league to another, your score is reset to 73 + the amount of bonus pool you have spent so far.
Grandmaster League
The Grandmaster League is a special league consisting of the top 200 players in a region as determined by moving average of MMR. After one week has elapsed in a season, the top 200 players with the highest moving average — and who have bonus pools below 90 — will become Grandmasters. The only way to be demoted out of Grandmaster League is to accrue 180 bonus pool.
Slots are reserved for the 200 highest moving average players, but if a player surpasses a reserved player’s moving average before the reserved player can win his promotion game at the time the league opens, his slot can be taken.
Starcraft 2 Ladder Ranks
Activity
Overview
The last piece of the Starcraft II ladder puzzle is activity. Blizzard always refers to their league populations in terms of “active players”, and this is because they want a relatively even spread of players across all leagues (again with the exception of Master which is designed to be smaller). Although the MMR requirements to join each league are constant, the skill level required to move into a higher league will change depending on the currently active population.
Activity in Terms of Bonus Pool
As previously mentioned, the Bonus Pool accumulates at a fixed rate for all players. This allows it to function as an activity metric, and by extension determine whether a player is active or not for the purposes of league apportionment. The lower a player’s remaining bonus pool, the more accurate his MMR.
League Population
There are seven leagues, and the population of each is governed by the current active population:
Grandmaster: Top 200 players based upon moving average of MMR (not represented on the chart because its a unique league)
Master: Top 2% of active players
Diamond: Next 18% of active players
Platinum: Next 20% of active players
Gold: Next 20% of active players
Silver: Next 20% of active players
Bronze: Bottom 20% of active players
The system dynamically distributes the population of active players across a constant range of MMR values, and league boundaries are fixed in relation to MMR. The boundaries are based on MMR values selected by a prior distribution that will capture these certain percentiles. Furthermore, the league boundaries can be adjusted by Blizzard on the fly in the event that populations need to be normalized.
Active Status
Your active/inactive status is not considered when evaluating you for a promotion, only your position relative to active players. The one additional requirement to getting promoted is that you must play a game, because league changes only occur after a game.
There are really no negative effects associated with going inactive. You don’t get demoted from leagues due to inactivity. Your MMR does not decrease. Your points do not decrease.
Season Transitions
Seasons last about two months. During a season transition, bonus pools and points are wiped, but MMR carries over to the next season. MMR is only carried over for one season. At the end of a season, an active player’s MMR will be carried over to the next. If they do not play any matches in the current season, however, and are not placed, the MMR will not carry over into a third season, effectively starting them fresh in the system.
Special Note: Random Team MMR is linked with 1v1 MMR. This means that if you did not play any 1v1 for one season, but did play a Random Team game, your 1v1 MMR would still carry over to the next season, and vice versa.
League Lock
A week before the end of a season, promotion and demotion will be disabled. This is known as a “league lock,” the purpose of which is to allow players to establish a final division rank for themselves. During a league lock, bonus pools will stop accumulating but players may spend their remaining bonus pools until the end of the season.
Milestones
At the time of the season rollover, you will receive an end-of-season Feat of Strength based upon your final division rank in each game type and team. For example, it’s possible to receive a “1v1 Top 8 Master” Feat of Strength in the same season as a “2v2 Top 16 Diamond” and “2v2 Top 50 Diamond.”
Seasonal Placement Match
When the new season begins, all players with a carried over MMR must play a single placement match to rejoin the ladder. Players conduct a single match. The match is primarily to determine which players are still active. One’s ranking is based primarily on one’s MMR from last season. Seasonal placement matches place players in a league depending on their current MMR following the placement match, just as the initial 5 placement matches when starting a new account, and do not require crossing a confidence buffer. This can mean that some players may find themselves close to the top or bottom of their new league, and can be promoted or demoted in as little as one game after their placement in the new season.
Open Bugs
There are some bugs in the system.
Bonus Pool Suddenly Becomes Very Large, but Unable to Spend Beyond a Certain Amount
As mentioned earlier in the guide, the Bonus Pool accumulates faster in Master league than in the lower leagues. There is a bug where occasionally, a player’s Master league bonus pool amount will be shown, rather than their actual consumable pool. This is only a display bug. Relogging usually resolves it.
Pre-game and Post-game Favoritism Discrepancy
The pre-game loading screen does not always agree with the post-game score screen, and may not always be accurate. The accurate information can always be found on the score screen. Blizzard is aware of this bug, but it cannot be consistently reproduced.
Source: Exaclibur_Z via TeamLiquid.net