• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 04:19
CEST 10:19
KST 17:19
  • 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
[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash10[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt1: New Chaos0Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy18ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT30Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book20
Community News
$5,000 WardiTV TLMC tournament - Presented by Monster Energy1GSL CK: More events planned pending crowdfunding0Weekly Cups (May 30-Apr 5): herO, Clem, SHIN win0[BSL22] RO32 Group Stage4Weekly Cups (March 23-29): herO takes triple6
StarCraft 2
General
https://www.facebook.com/OzoZen.Official/ BGE Stara Zagora 2026 cancelled Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool Weekly Cups (May 30-Apr 5): herO, Clem, SHIN win Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info
Tourneys
RSL Season 4 announced for March-April $5,000 WardiTV TLMC tournament - Presented by Monster Energy Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond) GSL CK: More events planned pending crowdfunding Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament
Strategy
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3 [A] Nemrods 1/4 players [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 520 Moving Fees Mutation # 519 Inner Power Mutation # 518 Radiation Zone
Brood War
General
Gypsy to Korea so ive been playing broodwar for a week straight. ASL21 General Discussion Pros React To: JaeDong vs Queen [BSL22] RO32 Group Stage
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL22] RO32 Group B - Sunday 21:00 CEST [BSL22] RO32 Group A - Saturday 21:00 CEST 🌍 Weekly Foreign Showmatches
Strategy
Muta micro map competition Fighting Spirit mining rates What's the deal with APM & what's its true value Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Darkest Dungeon
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
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
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion Cricket [SPORT] Tokyo Olympics 2021 Thread General nutrition recommendations
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
[G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Loot Boxes—Emotions, And Why…
TrAiDoS
Broowar part 2
qwaykee
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
FS++
Kraekkling
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Electronics
mantequilla
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1841 users

SC2 Ladder Analysis: What YOU Need to Know - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 11 Next All
zul
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany5427 Posts
April 04 2010 01:55 GMT
#41
i once heard that will be a pro-ladder above the platinum and the top 8 of every Division will be promoted to that ladder. But your explanation makes more sense. Good Job.
keep it deep! @zulison
HDstarcraft
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States577 Posts
April 04 2010 09:02 GMT
#42
Great read!
YouTube.com/HDstarcraft
SleepSheep
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
Canada344 Posts
April 04 2010 09:12 GMT
#43
thanks, great analysis
cartoon]x
Profile Joined March 2010
United States606 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-04 09:40:11
April 04 2010 09:28 GMT
#44
more skilled players won't be placed in earlier divisions unless there are more skilled players playing at the very start of division formation (this would be explained by players who play more frequently being placed earlier.. which is sort of speculative). If you have 100 people, you can assume a set number (let's say 15) will be placed in platinum. This happens regardless of the groups overall skill level. It has nothing to do with a win ratio in placement games skewing placement towards platinum. Since players can be demoted from leagues as well as promoted, there will be no collective movement of initially placed gold players filling the ranks of later platinum divisions without some equal demoting of platinums. The effect will be relatively even skill levels across platinum divisions barring the possibility of more frequent, high skill level players being placed earlier.
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
lowlypawn
Profile Joined January 2009
United States241 Posts
April 04 2010 10:55 GMT
#45
Great post.
Ghardo
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
Germany1685 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-04 11:12:00
April 04 2010 11:08 GMT
#46
so to get this straight (because i was discussing it in another thread): the main supposition here is that it's got nothing to do with divisions who you're matched against, meaning you don't play people from your own division more often than people from other divisions?

my assumption went along with what the following person said:

On April 03 2010 18:17 Dyno. wrote:
In addition to what people have said about being evenly matched, there have been cases of people being "promoted" from one platinum division to another. It was a bug that blizzard has since fixed. However, when this happened, the player's rating would be significantly different in their new division compared to their original one.

It happened to KHB twice on different accounts (whatever happened to him anyway?).

Edit: And to address what someone said earlier about the matchmaking system not favoring players in your own division, this is generally believed to not be true. It seems fairly obvious that the matchmaking system will attempt to match you with a closely-rated player in your own division before searching the rest of the league, and then expanding to other leagues. If the #1 and #2 players in a division are queueing up at the same time, they will almost always get matched up together. This is why we saw such things as IdrA and CauthonLuck playing so many games against eachother prior to the reset (they were both top3 in div 4).


if that was true, how can you compare ratings across divisions when the generated ELO depends on the players you are matched against (and players from your own division WOULD be favored)?

sad that we have no contact to the person(s) who stand behind this matchmaking system and could easily answer the question if it does or doesn't play a role in which division you are and what opponents you get accordingly.
nonymous
Profile Joined March 2010
United States32 Posts
April 04 2010 22:34 GMT
#47
On April 03 2010 02:14 heyoka wrote:
Given how much testing they have done with WoW, it seems pretty logical to assume they would use a very similar system for bnet 2.0. Good read, solid reasoning.


if this is anything like wow's arena rating system i will be severely disappointed.

being a 2300 3v3 wow arena'er myself, i'd be really mad if they made it the same.

the arena match making system im wow is so messed up right now... jesus. i really hope they do more testing
StayFrosty
Profile Joined February 2010
Canada743 Posts
April 05 2010 02:22 GMT
#48
nice read thanks
Mora
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
Canada5235 Posts
April 05 2010 02:32 GMT
#49
excal you rock <3
Happiness only real when shared.
Rennys
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom5 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-07 11:24:37
April 07 2010 11:14 GMT
#50
this is my first post here and since i come to this website for useful information concerning strat and i saw that no one wrote any numbers concerning promotions, i thought i should add something ...

i was copper division 55 and after being first for about a day once i hit 1300 points (2nd guy was 1233) with my 69th game i was promote to bronze. i was added to bronze div 80 and straight away i was rank 9 with 1039 points.

hope this helps on finding how the system works

edit: oh and my bonus pool changed from 0 to 52.
last edit .... maybe: when i joined i was rank 9 with only 1039 simply cos most people in the group had 1000 points cos they just joined on that day with 5 games. also on closer inspection there was 47 people in the division so a new one i gues. and rank one in that group had 1242.
Trias
Profile Joined November 2007
Netherlands53 Posts
April 07 2010 11:54 GMT
#51
About higher skilled players being in lower division numbers statistically. I'd expect that to be true only for the first season. I'd seems (to me) very likely that divisions will be redistributed periodically (probably at the start of a season), with players being evenly distributed based on their skill (i.e. MMR most likely).

If this is not the case, I feel sorry for that nice guy that got stuck in division 666 with all those BM players. Or less exaggerated, it should be refreshing for everybody to have a new set division mates once in a while.
ahbeez
Profile Joined February 2010
56 Posts
April 07 2010 12:13 GMT
#52
got placed in bronze, after about 10 games i started playing only platinum and gold people, went 20-12 and got moved to silver, played sooo many games and went 65-49 against mostly platinum people and moved to gold, went 100-70ish and got moved to platinum...just kind of weird that i played platinum people regularly almost right from the start but it took almost 200 games to get there. my win record isnt good but still..
Merano
Profile Joined January 2008
Austria105 Posts
April 10 2010 14:58 GMT
#53
I am a pretty bad casual player at SC2 (30 APM max, often supply blocked, often can't build things fast enough to makro properly on 2 bases), but was very lucky at my placement matches - I got paired against 4 very weak players first and stomped them. 5th opponent was good (280 APM) and I had no chance.

So I was put in Gold with my 4-1 score, set 1000 (ELO?) points initially.
Thought that I would get stomped here like opponent 5 did - at least until I am releveled to Silber or Bronce. But surprisingly, I am still matched against opponents, that I can sometimes beat (now at 970 something with a 8-6 score).

So whats the point of my story? 5 placement matches are probably not enough. But even if you are running bad in your league, the system does a good job in finding suitable opponents for you. Just wondering when the system will find out how bad I am and relevel me - so my goal is to try to stay in Gold as long as possible.

Finally sorry to all the decent players that get paired against me and might wonder: "What the hell is this guy doing here in Gold?"
Tamerlane
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada424 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-10 15:41:36
April 10 2010 15:38 GMT
#54
well, if you keep hovering around 1000 pts in Gold, you definitely belong to how the current gold league is defined

but 14 games isn't much, keep playing and see how it goes, if you drop below 900 you will probably be demoted

On April 07 2010 21:13 ahbeez wrote:
got placed in bronze, after about 10 games i started playing only platinum and gold people, went 20-12 and got moved to silver, played sooo many games and went 65-49 against mostly platinum people and moved to gold, went 100-70ish and got moved to platinum...just kind of weird that i played platinum people regularly almost right from the start but it took almost 200 games to get there. my win record isnt good but still..


there's a huge difference between high/low plat players, being able to win against low ranked plat players is usually not any more an achievement (or a representation of skills) than winning against top gold players (say, with 1250-1300 rating)

plus, if you have a winning rate not that far above 50% against those players, maybe it was a good thing the system did wait for you to play more games before moving you from silver to gold and from gold to plat, don't you think?
Kozmic
Profile Joined April 2010
28 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-13 20:07:54
April 13 2010 20:01 GMT
#55
Thanks for this post -

I still don't understand why I got demoted after I win every game where the other team is favored (2v2 random.) Stayed around 1000 while going 1:1 (or a little over) and still got demoted.

Ah well, thanks for this post and hopefully blizzard will clear things up a little more. I'm assuming every time the other person is favored they are A) In a higher league or B) same league but more points. According to the OP, I should have been promoted then *sigh*


edit: I got demoted on my 20th game, just if anyone cares about that note. Excuse me while I faceroll back up to gold I guess -_-
When all your wishes are granted, your dreams will be destroyed
Robonord
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States311 Posts
April 16 2010 17:19 GMT
#56
Great post. I agree 100% with what was said in the OP.

There are plenty of times my platinum ranked friend would crush someone who was slightly favored against him only to find out the other guy was in gold league or lower . I tend to believe the other guy was favored because of one of the following 3 reasons:

1) The other guy had only played only a few games (which he could have won) and thus his MMR shot up way higher then it should have been.

2) He went on a long winning streak, perhaps against some high MMR opponents who were having off days, and his MMR shot up higher then it should of.

3) There are so few people playing beta that everyone's MMR is so highly volatile that there are likely to be huge fluctuations in a single person's MMR. This is can be readily seen because of how quickly the matchmaking reverts to "Expanding Search" thus searching for players largely out of your MMR range.

I also had a thought about the "review checkpoints". I think that the number of games goes up exponentially so as to get you in your proper league sooner and then leave you there for a while so that you can climb that individual ladder. For example: Review checkpoints would happen at intervals like 25 games, 75 games, 150 games, 300 games etc. so you can get that feeling like you have something to strive for as was the intention of the league system.
IMLosirA | ST_Bomber | SlayerS_Puzzle
HeyZeus
Profile Joined April 2010
United States23 Posts
April 20 2010 18:33 GMT
#57
Long time reader, first time poster.

My question is this (I'd be happy to hear thoughts on this from anyone): If you go 5-0 in your placement games, does that guarantee that you'll wind up in Platinum? Has anyone ever experienced going undefeated in their placement games and still not been placed in Platinum? I'm just curious because its quite possible to play five weak opponents by chance in your placement games and then get placed somewhere you don't belong. Likewise, you could easily go 3-0, then lose to two high-level plats that are also playing their placement games (after a ladder reset), and wind up in silver where you don't belong.

As several people have mentioned, it could take quite a large number of games (100+?) to move from silver to platinum even with a good win ratio vs. other platinum players.
Cain0
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United Kingdom608 Posts
April 20 2010 19:29 GMT
#58
Great Write-up good work
tathecat563
Profile Joined April 2010
United States96 Posts
April 20 2010 19:51 GMT
#59
Very informative!

I have a question and wasn't sure where to ask it and couldn't find any info on it...

Was there a ladder reset very recently? I had to play the placement matches again.
Hi
fellcrow
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States288 Posts
April 20 2010 20:17 GMT
#60
Awesome read. Great analysis. Not 100% on everything as other people and you noted. But I would like blizzard to release all there information on how they rank everyone, divisions etc. If higher divisions actually do mean better players or what exactly. Just would like a 100% answer from blizzard. Would help other people in organizing tournaments really. Cause being number 20 in division one might be better then someone top 5 in like division 50. That's not a guarantee either but it would be nice like I said. And they also need to add a battle.net feature to look across multiple divisions and others ranks etc. It will probably be like that on release but I want it now! haha
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 11 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 41m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Nina 35
SortOf 4
StarCraft: Brood War
Zeus 2432
Sea 1877
firebathero 559
Larva 143
Killer 66
Leta 33
Sharp 25
NotJumperer 18
Bale 14
Icarus 13
[ Show more ]
GoRush 12
ajuk12(nOOB) 11
Shinee 10
Dota 2
XaKoH 265
XcaliburYe169
NeuroSwarm120
Counter-Strike
olofmeister1605
Stewie2K752
shoxiejesuss399
Other Games
summit1g9683
Liquid`RaSZi518
ceh9497
C9.Mang0345
Mew2King66
Organizations
Counter-Strike
PGL11248
Other Games
gamesdonequick690
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• LUISG 27
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos1324
• Lourlo1209
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
1h 41m
CranKy Ducklings
15h 41m
WardiTV Team League
1d 2h
Replay Cast
1d 15h
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
WardiTV Team League
2 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
2 days
BSL
2 days
n0maD vs perroflaco
TerrOr vs ZZZero
MadiNho vs WolFix
DragOn vs LancerX
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
WardiTV Team League
3 days
[ Show More ]
OSC
3 days
BSL
3 days
Sterling vs Azhi_Dahaki
Napoleon vs Mazur
Jimin vs Nesh
spx vs Strudel
Replay Cast
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Wardi Open
4 days
GSL
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Kung Fu Cup
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Elite League 2026
RSL Revival: Season 4
NationLESS Cup

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
ASL Season 21
CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
StarCraft2 Community Team League 2026 Spring
Nations Cup 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
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

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W2
IPSL Spring 2026
Escore Tournament S2: W3
Acropolis #4
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
RSL Revival: Season 5
WardiTV TLMC #16
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
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.