• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 04:36
CET 09:36
KST 17:36
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy5ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT30Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book19Clem wins HomeStory Cup 289HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview13
Community News
Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool31Weekly Cups (March 9-15): herO, Clem, ByuN win42026 KungFu Cup Announcement6BGE Stara Zagora 2026 cancelled12Blizzard Classic Cup - Tastosis announced as captains18
StarCraft 2
General
Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool Potential Updates Coming to the SC2 CN Server Weekly Cups (March 2-8): ByuN overcomes PvT block Weekly Cups (August 25-31): Clem's Last Straw? Weekly Cups (March 9-15): herO, Clem, ByuN win
Tourneys
World University TeamLeague (500$+) | Signups Open RSL Season 4 announced for March-April Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament WardiTV Team League Season 10 KSL Week 87
Strategy
Custom Maps
Publishing has been re-enabled! [Feb 24th 2026]
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 517 Distant Threat Mutation # 516 Specter of Death Mutation # 515 Together Forever
Brood War
General
ASL21 General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Gypsy to Korea JaeDong's form before ASL BSL Season 22
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL22] Open Qualifiers & Ladder Tours Small VOD Thread 2.0 IPSL Spring 2026 is here!
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2 Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Path of Exile Dawn of War IV
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
G2 just beat GenG in First stand
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Five o'clock TL Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Mexico's Drug War
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Cricket [SPORT] Formula 1 Discussion Tokyo Olympics 2021 Thread General nutrition recommendations
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Laptop capable of using Photoshop Lightroom?
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Money Laundering In Video Ga…
TrAiDoS
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
FS++
Kraekkling
Shocked by a laser…
Spydermine0240
Unintentional protectionism…
Uldridge
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 4019 users

League placements are weird...

Blogs > Bargil
Post a Reply
Bargil
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
United States141 Posts
August 31 2011 04:33 GMT
#1
Well, I think I played the most I've ever played the last 2 days and I'm actually proud of what I ended up in. Currently, I'm 1v1 Silver Rank 5 and today I played pretty much all the team games out there and got placed in the weirdest leagues ever.

Basically I went into 4v4 and played one game to get ranked. I won, got the highest score on my team (not to brag, but I pretty much carried my whole team) and got placed in Bronze. Wut.

3v3s were a bit challenging, I played one game as well and won that too with relative ease, got second on my team and got placed in Silver. Not too weird but I kind of expected it to be bronze considering how bad I did.

2v2s. Now I had to play 5 matches to get placed, so no worries, just hoping for some good teammates. But no, they were insisting on 4 gating and all-inning but I somehow won all the games except one because my teammate proxied a 2 rax IN FRONT of the other team's base. It worked for 2 minutes or so the it all went crashing. To sum it up, I was forced to cheese/all in in almost all the games (except for one where I went Zealot/Phoenix) and lost because of a stupid teammate.

I got placed in 2v2 Platinum Rank 4. LOLWUT. I don't get it, seriously.

This is more of a rant blog than anything -_-.

youtube.com/BargilStarcraft
vladimir420
Profile Joined August 2011
Russian Federation16 Posts
August 31 2011 04:45 GMT
#2
yeah the blizzard league and ladder system make about 0 sense. Even if some people have deciphered the super complex way leagues are made and the algorithms that blizzard uses for placement (there are threads on it) the system sucks at actually showing who is better at the game. Like rank 4 in one league is equivalent to rank 40 in another, and with the bonus pool everyones points rises so its basically impossible to tell what ladder ranking is high or low
101toss
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
3232 Posts
August 31 2011 04:49 GMT
#3
Please note that team games don't really reflect your skills as an individual. I once was in a game with a master 4v4 player who was in 1v1 bronze. I'm masters 4v4 (random team) but I'm still in diamond :/

Also, I carried a bronze league friend of mine in 2v2, bam! Platinum, he was so excited.
Math doesn't kill champions and neither do wards
Bargil
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
United States141 Posts
August 31 2011 04:51 GMT
#4
Yeah I figured team games were just for fun, though recently I got off a bad 6 loss streak in 1v1 so I took a break and played team games. They were helpful, as I went back into 1v1 later and got a 4 win streak, and hadn't played it since.

Bonus pool is stupid.
youtube.com/BargilStarcraft
sechkie
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States334 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-08-31 06:26:55
August 31 2011 06:19 GMT
#5
okay, how the game went has no bearing on where you get placed,

so things like poinmts cheese apm all this stuff doesnt matter when u get placed
Jerubaal
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States7684 Posts
August 31 2011 07:31 GMT
#6
I think a lot of people would do well just to ignore everything about the ladder and matchmaking.

It's designed to be a carrot to keep you laddering, but some people just get way too focused on it and create mental road blocks. So if you haven't been paying attention for the last year, let me summarize:

-Rank- Means nothing until GM and has no effect on who you are matched against.
-Points- Mean nothing and have no effect on who you are matched against.
-Bonus pool- has no bearing on anything. It's there purely as a technique to keep you playing. If you give a shit about bonus pool or points in general, you have officially been suckered.
-League- A general indication of where the your MMR is at but not definitively so. You may very well have a higher MMR than someone in the league above you or vice versa. The matchmaking system does not look at league.
-Favored/Not Favored- I don't know exactly how this works, but a better question is: Why should you give a shit?
-MMR- Your 'true' skill. Hidden. You don't know what it is.

The best advice I can give you is to just ignore everything and play your games. The ladder is not screwing you. You are not in 'elo hell'. You would not be in Masters 'if only Blizzard could make a good ladder system'. Luckily, it does not require your comprehension to function.
I'm not stupid, a marauder just shot my brain.
NaTTanael
Profile Joined August 2011
22 Posts
August 31 2011 07:38 GMT
#7
Its all about MMR. Favored means that somebody has more MMR than you. Being downgraded or upgraded depends on MMR. Its like every other matchmaking system like in LoL or Dota. The question is... How really is.
RyLai
Profile Joined May 2011
United States477 Posts
August 31 2011 07:54 GMT
#8
On August 31 2011 13:33 Bargil wrote:
Well, I think I played the most I've ever played the last 2 days and I'm actually proud of what I ended up in. Currently, I'm 1v1 Silver Rank 5 and today I played pretty much all the team games out there and got placed in the weirdest leagues ever.

Basically I went into 4v4 and played one game to get ranked. I won, got the highest score on my team (not to brag, but I pretty much carried my whole team) and got placed in Bronze. Wut.

3v3s were a bit challenging, I played one game as well and won that too with relative ease, got second on my team and got placed in Silver. Not too weird but I kind of expected it to be bronze considering how bad I did.

2v2s. Now I had to play 5 matches to get placed, so no worries, just hoping for some good teammates. But no, they were insisting on 4 gating and all-inning but I somehow won all the games except one because my teammate proxied a 2 rax IN FRONT of the other team's base. It worked for 2 minutes or so the it all went crashing. To sum it up, I was forced to cheese/all in in almost all the games (except for one where I went Zealot/Phoenix) and lost because of a stupid teammate.

I got placed in 2v2 Platinum Rank 4. LOLWUT. I don't get it, seriously.

This is more of a rant blog than anything -_-.


They're not weird, you just don't understand them...

Basically, when you first start (Battle.net having NO record of previous games of a given game type on your account), you have to play 5 placement matches so that Blizzard can TRY to approximate your skill level by comparing them to the 5 people you played against.

I'm not 100% sure how it goes, but this is generally what happens:

0 Wins - Bronze
1 Win - Bronze (sometimes silver based on opponents played)
2 Wins - Bronze/Silver (based on opponents played)
3 Wins - Silver/Gold (based on opponents played)
4 Wins - Gold/Plat (based on opponents played)
5 Wins - Plat (sometimes diamond or masters in team games, rarely diamond in 1v1, never masters in 1v1)

USUALLY in 1v1, it takes 5 wins to get into plat... Or at least that's how it used to be... You can get lucky sometimes and do it in 4. The above pretty much applies to team games as it's stated above.

Now, when you're already ranked in one season and the ladder gets reset, you only have to play 1 placement match for seasons following that one. MOST OF THE TIME, win or lose, you get placed in the same league as before. SOMETIMES, if you are on the edge of promotion or demotion, you MIGHT get promoted or demoted based on your performance (sometimes I think it also doesn't matter if you win or lose, it'll still happen - at least for promotion).

Now, in your 4v4, you already have a history of playing bronze/silver level 4v4 players (team leagues don't translate to solo leagues). You weren't playing well enough in the last season you played in, so you weren't near promotion status. As a result, you stayed in bronze (win or lose). We could have oGsMC play on your account for that game and they still wouldn't give him anything but bronze even if his whole team went afk (he would still win, you can easily do a 1v4 until you hit diamond level 4v4, though I think MC could still pull it off). In 80-90% of the 4v4s I play, I either carry or get the highest score. Does it mean I'm getting a promotion anytime soon? Probably not, but I don't care much since it's not 1v1.

In the 3v3, same story... You were in Silver the last time you were ranked. You could've failed miserably, gotten the worst score, and all sorts of bad stuff and still make it to silver.

In 2v2, you had no record. That means Blizzard will give you increasing or decreasing skill levels based on how your team did (not you individually). If you win, you play a better team and so on and visa versa. The end result is where you get placed. You got 4 good players in a row who LED you to victory 4 times in a row (don't even try to argue this unless they dd a 10 minute 4 gate and failed miserably). You won 4 games against reasonably good team players, and got placed in plat. Granted, you got carried there, but that happens, and as you keep playing, if you play enough Blizzard will realize you need to be dropped a league or 2 unless you improve to the level you need to be at to maintain plat league status.

(Team games are most easily won by putting together powerful timing attacks to pick off enemy player(s) because your enemy was stupid enough to be greedy with their economy or tech and as a result they won't have enough units to deal with it. So if you and your ally(s) go for powerful cheeses or all-ins together and ALL of your opponents aren't ready to deal with it, you'll easily pick them off 1 by 1. It's simple really... If 2 Zergs go 6 Pool against a Zerg who 6 pools and a Zerg who 14 gas 14 pooled (or worse, 15 hatch), then the Zergs who went double 6 Pool will win unless they get severely outplayed or unlucky. Like, a person going 6 Pool doesn't have enough Drones to mineral micro against a single 6 Pool, nevermind 2. And he doesn't have enough lings to deal with both either. And if they hit the late pool player, it's MUCH harder to mineral micro against 12 lings as opposed to 6 and STILL take no losses (or very minimal losses). That's why people can actually get away with everyone on the team doing a 7 Roach rush 5 games in a row, win all 5 easily, and get placed in Master's League for 4v4. It doesn't always happen, but it's common enough that people do it knowing they can easily pull it off.)
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 24m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
ProTech127
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 8279
Hm[arnc] 1643
BeSt 602
Larva 352
Nal_rA 87
Leta 86
sSak 39
Soma 29
Bale 26
NotJumperer 25
[ Show more ]
ToSsGirL 17
zelot 8
eros_byul 0
Dota 2
XaKoH 859
NeuroSwarm164
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K1138
Super Smash Bros
Westballz42
Other Games
Sick171
ViBE134
Livibee88
Mew2King41
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick686
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream192
Other Games
BasetradeTV46
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 24
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH220
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• HappyZerGling152
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
1h 24m
herO vs MaxPax
Rogue vs TriGGeR
BSL
11h 24m
Replay Cast
15h 24m
Replay Cast
1d
Afreeca Starleague
1d 1h
Sharp vs Scan
Rain vs Mong
Wardi Open
1d 3h
Monday Night Weeklies
1d 8h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
Afreeca Starleague
2 days
Soulkey vs Ample
JyJ vs sSak
Replay Cast
3 days
[ Show More ]
Afreeca Starleague
3 days
hero vs YSC
Larva vs Shine
Kung Fu Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
KCM Race Survival
4 days
The PondCast
4 days
WardiTV Team League
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
WardiTV Team League
5 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Cure vs Zoun
WardiTV Team League
6 days
BSL
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Jeongseon Sooper Cup
WardiTV Winter 2026
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
BSL Season 22
CSL Elite League 2026
RSL Revival: Season 4
Nations Cup 2026
NationLESS Cup
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual

Upcoming

ASL Season 21
Acropolis #4 - TS6
2026 Changsha Offline CUP
CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
CSL Season 20: Qualifier 1
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
CCT Season 3 Global Finals
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.