• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 00:48
CET 05:48
KST 13:48
  • 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
ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT29Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book19Clem wins HomeStory Cup 289HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview13Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info8
Community News
BSL Season 221Vitality ends partnership with ONSYDE19Team Liquid Map Contest - Preparation Notice6Weekly Cups (Feb 23-Mar 1): herO doubles, 2v2 bonanza1Weekly Cups (Feb 16-22): MaxPax doubles0
StarCraft 2
General
How do you think the 5.0.15 balance patch (Oct 2025) for StarCraft II has affected the game? Vitality ends partnership with ONSYDE Team Liquid Map Contest - Preparation Notice ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT Nexon's StarCraft game could be FPS, led by UMS maker
Tourneys
RSL Season 4 announced for March-April Tele@Fullzpros (Fullz USA UK CA) DL/ID SCANS EIN Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament PIG STY FESTIVAL 7.0! (19 Feb - 1 Mar) $5,000 WardiTV Winter Championship 2026
Strategy
Custom Maps
Publishing has been re-enabled! [Feb 24th 2026] Map Editor closed ?
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 516 Specter of Death Mutation # 515 Together Forever Mutation # 514 Ulnar New Year
Brood War
General
ASL21 General Discussion Effort misses out on ASL S21 BSL Season 22 BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ battle.net problems
Tourneys
ASL Season 21 Qualifiers March 7-8 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues BWCL Season 64 Announcement [BSL22] Open Qualifier #1 - Sunday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2 Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Zealot bombing is no longer popular?
Other Games
General Games
Path of Exile No Man's Sky (PS4 and PC) PC Games Sales Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
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
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
Mexico's Drug War US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine YouTube Thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Formula 1 Discussion 2024 - 2026 Football Thread Cricket [SPORT] TL MMA Pick'em Pool 2013
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Laptop capable of using Photoshop Lightroom?
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
FS++
Kraekkling
Shocked by a laser…
Spydermine0240
Gaming-Related Deaths
TrAiDoS
ONE GREAT AMERICAN MARINE…
XenOsky
Unintentional protectionism…
Uldridge
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1851 users

New ladder season, weird league jumps?

Blogs > GaNgStaRR.ElV
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
GaNgStaRR.ElV
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada535 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-01 15:13:17
May 01 2013 15:12 GMT
#1


So I woke up today with a big smile on my face. HOTS Season 2 2012 begins today!

After sitting through the majority of the Code A qualifiers I was ready to take on the ladder and make a big early season push. I was pretty upset because a huge amount of work meant I had finished with 200+ BP.

Upon playing my first game, i was hit with shame...I saw the "Diamond" logo appear; just as a frame of reference I have 8 seasons of 1v1 Masters in a row, consistently in the 900-1k points region, so needless to say, being demoted felt like absolute crap, and very undeserved. I mean why demote me if I had a 53-42 record, surely there's worse players. look at my match history:

[image loading]

Not exactly signs pointing to me deserving a step down. Some of those games were against diamond players(one guy was diamond with best result silver league, WTF?).

Anyways so I proceeded to bang on some of the most boring SC2 games I could imagine. First against mid-tier diamond players(snore), then finally in my last game I played a masters player. Excited, I was. To be able to make my way back! Here is the replay:

http://drop.sc/329575

For those who don't want to watch the game, the opponent basically gets manhandled by a 4 mine drop while simultaneously A-moving a bunch of stalkers into my front bunker, proceeds to get 1 colossi and +1 attack on 2 base by 15:00, and eventually loses to me when I decide enough is enough after hitting 200/200 with 6 CC and 3/3 en route.

After the game I check out his profile, turns out the guy "earned" his masters spot by going 6-1 in GOLD LEAGUE. At this point I'm thinking something weird is going on. How the hell 1. is that guys MMR anywhere near to Masters-level 2. how did he get promoted on the back of 7 games. Here's a profile link so you can see what I'm on about.
starcraft://profile/1/7010898477035028480

So I decided to do a little bit of digging and checked out the people in this guy's Masters division to see if this was a common trend. I found more examples of this, here are the biggest jumpers!

starcraft://profile/1/10215948470838099968 This guy went 19-10 in Gold Division, and also played some Platinum level WoL. Another 3 league promotion. GL HF explaining that...

starcraft://profile/1/7184770847805014016 A remarkable 46-32 in SILVER LEAGUE made this player worthy of a 4 league promotion. Today is a day of big winners apparently!

On the back of this relevation, I am calling for the undoing of the current Starcraft 2 HOTS ladder system and it's "hidden MMR" and league tier system. I am tired of people making it into divisions they don't deserve because they wake up earlier than others. I am tired of not being able to compare my ladder ranking with anyone else in a way that makes any kind of legitimate argument. I am tired of having to guestimate at my current skill level thanks to a system which does absolutely nothing to tell you about where you lie, I am tired of having to face my first-ever demotion on the back of what I considered a fairly successful season.

There is clearly something wrong here, the system is too confusing, I would have never gussed in my wildest dreams that I would be demoted with a positive record, just doesn't make sense.

Please Blizzard just do a WC3 style ladder, add leagues to various tiers, top200 can be called "GM', whatever you have to do for the casuals. But atleast give me a ladder where I can feel some progress/check how I'm doing rather than just having to best-guess things and having to set shitty goals like "let's get top8 masters this season" rather than "lets try to be in the top1000 of ladder".


*
TheBigO
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States97 Posts
May 01 2013 15:31 GMT
#2
Dude, I think you are overreacting a bit.

If you are meant to be in Masters, then just keep playing games. If you keep winning, the game will put you at the level you should be at. If that level is Masters level, then you will be promoted soon.

As for those other people, if they were promoted too high, then they will soon be demoted to their correct league and skill level. It is probably just a small bug, and it will fixed in a week at most.

I really need a better quote... but I have no ideas :( .
GaNgStaRR.ElV
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada535 Posts
May 01 2013 15:45 GMT
#3
On May 02 2013 00:31 TheBigO wrote:
Dude, I think you are overreacting a bit.

If you are meant to be in Masters, then just keep playing games. If you keep winning, the game will put you at the level you should be at. If that level is Masters level, then you will be promoted soon.

As for those other people, if they were promoted too high, then they will soon be demoted to their correct league and skill level. It is probably just a small bug, and it will fixed in a week at most.



I know that I will get back there, what I'm saying is that I've played this game for 3+ years, always believing in the system they had in place and putting my faith that it would show me the way.

After watching people 1-0 or 0-1 through 2-3 seasons of Masters just to keep that shiny icon, and then to lose it myself all because maybe I didn't play quite as much as the top2% should and had 200BP sitting on 1k points at the end of the season, is ridiculous. Why is your rating/ranking based entirely on a invisible statistic that attempts to determine where you stand in the ladder by looking at where your opponents MMR and making a judging whether you should win or lose and awarding you a variable set of points based on the outcome of this calculation, without taking into account things like;

1. how well you actually play
2. whether opponent is smurfing


I am upset because frankly I was looking forward to a long hard push and finally getting my top8 that I have been so close to before, and now I have to play these bullshit games against diamond players where I am stressed as fuck because you literally can't lose a game or Blizzard's magic system will think you belong there, even if you get baneling busted by a guy with 100apm who just does that build 24/7 and got lucky.

I much preferred the no-stress ML attitude where my sole focus was "I have X points, I want to have X points" and have long-term goals rather than having to walk the knife-edge of promotion.

6-0 so far, all shitty games, even winning after losing 20 workers to a roach/ling all in, and losing another 10 when his muta flock followed up, yet win despite this because the opponents are too crappy to have any sort of positional play/multitask skill.
GaNgStaRR.ElV
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada535 Posts
May 01 2013 16:15 GMT
#4
And yes losing to worse players who just 1 base all in like little bitches all game, hurts. Rather be outplayed than coinflipped.
Rannasha
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Netherlands2398 Posts
May 01 2013 16:30 GMT
#5
Stop worrying about the league you're in. It's a meaningless statistic. Your MMR decides who you play against. Your MMR is most likely still very much the same as it was before the season changed, so you'll end up with roughly the same opponents. There may be a small shift as inactive players may become a bit more active when a new season starts, but that's it.
Such flammable little insects!
Cranium
Profile Joined August 2012
United States48 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-01 17:58:48
May 01 2013 16:38 GMT
#6
Same thing happened to me.

I was 1100 point Masters, now Diamond... Winning all of my games against bad players.

Hopefully if I go 10/0 I'll get GM or something when GM starts.

Going to edit with my match history:

Game 1:
I just won a ZvZ where the guy went fast fast lair and took a 3rd anf a 4th and a macro hatch at the same time, I didn't notice it, and I still won on 3 base vs 4 by having more mutas.

Game 2:
Kid goes 10 pool speedling or something just amoves me with lings.. Easy win...

Game 3:
Played against a kid who said he was promoted from Platinum to Masters this season. Made Ultralisks and Infestors and a-moved him.

Game 4:
Played against a WoL master HotS platinum who just kinda beat me on buildorder.

Game 5:

Beat some idiot terran.

Game 6:

Lost to some idiot terran.
GaNgStaRR.ElV
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada535 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-05-01 16:46:32
May 01 2013 16:43 GMT
#7
On May 02 2013 01:38 Cranium wrote:
Same thing happened to me.

I was 1100 point Masters, now Diamond... Winning all of my games against bad players.

I just won a ZvZ where the guy went fast fast lair and took a 3rd anf a 4th and a macro hatch at the same time, I didn't notice it, and I still won on 3 base vs 4 by having more mutas.

Hopefully if I go 10/0 I'll get GM or something when GM starts.



Glad to see I'm not the only one.

Again I'm most frustrated having to deal with constant diamond level shitty all-ins that you don't even see at Masters level, or atleast not that poorly executed. It's really frustrating because I can feel myself playing crappy strats just to cope with random all-ins, weird unit comps etc.

Losing to 2rax vs a top8 masters and then facing only diamond players again= lame as fuck.

Im going to go do something else now, have a skate do some jumps, because I'm tilting right now and it's seriously effecting my play.

And to guy who says "Rank means nothing" you wouldnt say that if the minute you came up as diamond clan ppl started saying "thought u were masters" and getting insulting messages from other friends making fun of me!
dabosaur
Profile Joined March 2011
Sweden95 Posts
May 01 2013 17:10 GMT
#8
I agree with you that their system is bad. I don't really mind tho since I know how good/bad I am, and sometimes it feels good to play others in a different skill level, some much better than you, some a bit worse.
ktimekiller
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States690 Posts
May 01 2013 19:39 GMT
#9
To note, if you were roughly 1k points at the end of the season, you were borderline Diamond. The season ended with a total bonus pool of 1132. If you were roughly at that points or under it, it would put you near 0 or even under 0 points as master.

There are a slew of people that are in your situation as bottom barrel master or top Diamond that switch spots frequently every new season.
Butterednuts
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States859 Posts
May 01 2013 19:43 GMT
#10
You're in masters and you don't know not to ladder on the first day the ladder comes out? There's such a small pool of seeded players. There's been countless stories of people getting demoted if they play their placement match right after the ladder is up.

Chameleons Cast No Shadows
GaNgStaRR.ElV
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada535 Posts
May 01 2013 20:20 GMT
#11
On May 02 2013 04:43 Butterednuts wrote:
You're in masters and you don't know not to ladder on the first day the ladder comes out? There's such a small pool of seeded players. There's been countless stories of people getting demoted if they play their placement match right after the ladder is up.



Didnt know that. I usually don't ladder the first couple days just cause I been working too much to be able play uring the week. It's only this season where I woke up went straight to play haha
Lokk
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Canada635 Posts
May 01 2013 20:26 GMT
#12
masters diamond same thing. ALL BOUT DAT GM SON
@Lokk_2/Go Woori 우리
blade55555
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States17423 Posts
May 01 2013 20:27 GMT
#13
On May 02 2013 04:39 ktimekiller wrote:
To note, if you were roughly 1k points at the end of the season, you were borderline Diamond. The season ended with a total bonus pool of 1132. If you were roughly at that points or under it, it would put you near 0 or even under 0 points as master.

There are a slew of people that are in your situation as bottom barrel master or top Diamond that switch spots frequently every new season.


oh I just learned something new. This doesn't affect me at all but I find it interesting that the season ended with 1132 bonus pool and if you are below that aren't masters or w/e.
When I think of something else, something will go here
CuSToM
Profile Joined October 2010
United States1478 Posts
May 01 2013 20:42 GMT
#14
idk what everyone is talking about... I was diamond in 2010 season 1 and have been diamond every season since......

like Kanye West once said "diamonds are forever"
Team SCV Life #1
Hashmeister
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany238 Posts
May 01 2013 21:43 GMT
#15
I'm a low Masters Player. I got promoted VERY quickly in the first HotS season (into masters) and now with the season 3 start, I got demoted to Diamond after my placement match. was very surprised about that, played about 15 games and got back to masters (12wins-3losses).

so the system seems to be fine for me, and I have to say a lot of my friends got into masters VERY prematurely I would have to say, and now they r all back into diamond where they were stuck for several seasons now. So I think it's good that the ladder MMR is re-adjusting itself tbh.
bit.ly/hashmeister
Tuminure
Profile Joined January 2013
Poland1 Post
Last Edited: 2013-05-01 21:56:43
May 01 2013 21:49 GMT
#16
On May 02 2013 04:39 ktimekiller wrote:
To note, if you were roughly 1k points at the end of the season, you were borderline Diamond. The season ended with a total bonus pool of 1132. If you were roughly at that points or under it, it would put you near 0 or even under 0 points as master.

Not really. To use whole bonus pool and reach 1132 points you'll have to win about 50% of your games*.

*if all of your games was "even match", and you just didn't play after bonus pool ends.
Diatommy
Profile Joined March 2013
2 Posts
May 01 2013 22:31 GMT
#17
I was diamond for most of last season after progressing pretty quickly through the leagues up to the point where I was consistently beating high diamond/ low masters. Then I lose my placement against a platinum player and I get demoted down to plat tt. I'll surely get back up to diamond, but ya I think Blizzard is trying to keep the rankings more honest this season reset.
"This is a fucking joke...Fuck you." -IdrA
TechSc2
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Netherlands554 Posts
May 02 2013 16:17 GMT
#18
same here, over 1200 points season 1 of 2013 ( and masters since it was realeased back in the early WoL days )and i played my placement match and it placed me in platinum, did 17 games yesterday and went 16-1 ( one silly micro mistake against a 4 gate T.T ). Already back into diamond but really weird that i didn't get back into masters.

I think blizzard saw the weird masters promotions last season and decided to wipe clean alot of MMR's. I did have 200 bonus pool left over and the website sc2ranks.com showed me as "inactive' in that season.

So maybe blizzard implemented a new hidden trigger that if someone is over a certain bonus pool at the end of the season they will have their MMR reset
Twitch.tv/TechGTV / Twitter.com/TechGTV
Cranium
Profile Joined August 2012
United States48 Posts
May 02 2013 22:51 GMT
#19
On May 03 2013 01:17 TechSc2 wrote:
same here, over 1200 points season 1 of 2013 ( and masters since it was realeased back in the early WoL days )and i played my placement match and it placed me in platinum, did 17 games yesterday and went 16-1 ( one silly micro mistake against a 4 gate T.T ). Already back into diamond but really weird that i didn't get back into masters.

I think blizzard saw the weird masters promotions last season and decided to wipe clean alot of MMR's. I did have 200 bonus pool left over and the website sc2ranks.com showed me as "inactive' in that season.

So maybe blizzard implemented a new hidden trigger that if someone is over a certain bonus pool at the end of the season they will have their MMR reset


I had 0-10 bonus pool the entire season.
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12911 Posts
May 02 2013 23:14 GMT
#20
I can't help nor explain your problem, but I also noticed that the MMR system has been changed quite a bit.
I was around high/top master every WoL season, but only played a few HotS games due to an injury. I didn't play enough games to be promoted to masters during the first few days (only did it on another account I borrowed to test HotS), amd right after I stopped for about one month and came back monday with the leagues blocked.

My mmr was fucked up, I only faced diamonds, some gold, one GM in unranked, and after a lot of wins some mid master players. So I guess they resetted the MMR due to inactivity or something. That may be what happened to you.
WriterMaru
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
00:00
Patch Clash Showdown #6
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RuFF_SC2 250
NeuroSwarm 132
StarCraft: Brood War
Sea 4933
Leta 368
Noble 62
Icarus 9
League of Legends
JimRising 781
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor145
Other Games
summit1g13193
kaitlyn11
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1700
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• davetesta80
• Berry_CruncH40
• practicex 30
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota21173
League of Legends
• Lourlo1536
• Rush1191
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
4h 12m
Monday Night Weeklies
12h 12m
OSC
19h 12m
Replay Cast
2 days
The PondCast
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

ASL Season 21: Qualifier #2
WardiTV Winter 2026
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Jeongseon Sooper Cup
Spring Cup 2026
BSL Season 22
RSL Revival: Season 4
Nations Cup 2026
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
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
CSLAN 4
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
NationLESS Cup
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
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
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.