how does the placement matches work?

[Nigerianrulz]

as the title suggest, i cant seem to get to bronze in any of my leagues D:

basically i started to play on a friends acc a few months ago and he was in plat, havnt been playing too much as this is the first time that ive properly played a RTS game (tends to use cheats on the other RTS games so ) but ive managed to get to high plat BUT im getting my own copy soon ( exams right now so minimum time for games) and ive tried before in placement matches to not do anything so i can be placed in bronze just for fun and to work on my macro more i was wondering how i could get to bronze coz the placement matches seems to take alot of stuff into account.

 

[Siretu]

According to Blizzard, they just care if it's a win or loss. Nothing more.

 

[UndeadDragon]

I am wondering this too. Me and my friend have been stuck in bronze forever in 2s.

We walked over our opponent in our placement match and still got Bronze. We then played 6 matches in our division and won every match, so I don't really know what's up with it.

 

[Siretu]

You went 5 - 0 in 2v2 and still got Bronze? That's pretty weird. The MMR has to stabilize so if you win 50 matches in a row, you might not get promoted before you lose a few.

 

[Slapshot136]

I think you need to beat someone who is in silver league or higher in order to advance in league, try looking also at who is above you (i.e. if you are #2 in bronze, who is #1 and how much ahead are they)

 

[thewrongvine]

http://www.starcraft-replay.com/guides/how-league-and-placement-matches-work-in-starcraft-2.php

http://lorehound.com/starcraft/starcraft-2s-battle-net-leagues-ladders-and-rankings-explained/

Different places say different things so who knows.

Nigerian, try losing all 5 of your placement matches, ha. Also, you said you want to be placed in bronze, but you really don't have to do that. If you don't care too much about the rank, just play normally as you would for fun and practice your macro, since you're not caring about winning or losing. If you are testing around and losing, I'm sure you'll slowly drop down. There are also, of course, custom games for you to practice on, Or you can practice with friends, people here, etc. in custom games.

 

[Bloodcount]

he Leagues from Strongest to Weakest:
Grandmasters - Top 200 (The really good guys)
Masters - Top 2%(where I am placed)
Diamond - Top 20%
Platinum - Top 40%
Gold - Top 60%
Silver - Top 80%
Bronze - Bottom 20%
Practice - For people new to the game, with different maps.
These are the leagues, they don’t necessarily show your skill level since diamond players sometimes loose to "bronzies" (players in Bronze league), the big ladder is made to create a competitive feeling for everyone. It is for fun, it Is a bar of your progress, not as much your skill.
The big problem with the leagues is that people sometimes get obsessed with them. The only reason why you’d want to be high ranked in a master/grandmaster division is to get into a team, but not just a team, but a team that pays you to play, and there are already enough pro’s for 5-6 times as many teams, so what you should do is just enjoy your game, if you get to a decent place in your division then great, if not, who cares, you loose nothing !
Personally I recommend skipping the practice league since it won’t prepare you in any way for the real ladder experience.
A part of the starcraft II players, especially in the lower leagues like bronze will try to end the game as fast as possible and get a fast win so that they can spam starcraft II and get a lot of points, and into a higher division. This is all fine and well, but at one point people begin defending these pushes and the player is either forced to start to learn, therefore getting beaten a lot of games or just staying at the same level.

Bottom line: Unless you want to go pro, leagues don’t matter, they are just for fun ^_^

5-0= Diamond
4-1 also= Diamond in some cases : P

 

[celerisk]

There's also (verified) stories of how both players got promoted after a match.
Or that you advanced only after you lost 3 games, following a 20+ win streak.
Clearly a mystery.

There's a Blue Post somewhere that goes into great detail, but ultimately doesn't explain anything either really.


> leagues don’t matter

Actually, they do.
Depends on your point of view.

Would you prefer to be 17th of 100 in your own corner, or 12889th of 75817 "globally"?

 

[Accname]

I dont think the system counts only wins/loses, i once lost 3 games in the placement matches and still got into plat league.
i think it is also looking at how many points you got or something similar.

 

[Bloodcount]

>> leagues don’t matter

Actually, they do.
Depends on your point of view.

Would you prefer to be 17th of 100 in your own corner, or 12889th of 75817 "globally"?

In season 2 I decided I wanna relax, so I was not only 1st in the diamond division I played in (a friend was nice enough to let me pwn players from his acc) But around 20th in Europe before I went inactive for a while. Both were pretty much the same.

 

[Daskunk]

According to Blizzard, they just care if it's a win or loss. Nothing more.

Not quite true - Win and Losses AND the MMR of the people you Won or Loss too. A small difference, but the idea that W/L ratio determines your ranking is WHY the removed the W/L ratio stat.

If you win 5 times against Bronze players in your Placements, it would count for as much as winning 5 times against a master level player.

The way placement matches work though, it is essentially might as well only count on wins - it just isn't exact. (5 losses will probably get you bronze\silver, whereas 5 wins will probably get you more in the Diamond\Platinum range)

leagues don’t matter

Not that this is really a main point anyone was harping on, but just wanted to add:
Divisions don't really matter (very much) since they're based off of game massing, but leagues are based off of actual skill. (MMR) So they do mean something. They just matter more the more you play, because a small pool of games isn't enough to tell your skill.

The system just uses the opponents MMR that you win and lose against to find yours, and once your MMR average falls within a league range it promotes or demotes you.

Why you can be promoted on a loss is this:
Its already decided you aren't really your current league (Ie, Silver) but its not sure if you're gold or platinum, so it gives you a platinum player. If you lose to it, it will still promote you to gold. Yet if you win, it will keep evaluating you to see if you got lucky or if you really are even higher then gold.

This is simplifying it, though. The system is very complex, nobody but Blizzard really knows the details.

This thread does provide some insight if you haven't already read it, though: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2112234276

 

[thewrongvine]

You guys are looking into this way too much, ha.

Bloodcount meant "leagues don't matter" not as in there's no point to them but, as in real life, they don't matter as it's just a game and for fun. That's why he said "unless you want to go pro". And there, it would matter.

I think.

 

[Jedimindtrixxx]

i think placement matches work stupid, last season i was gold and finished with a 21-21 record (1.0 w/l) and then i won my placement match for season 3 and got put in silver. now i am a sad panda. i guess like bloodcount said though, more room for practise and experimenting now

 

[YourFace]

You have to beat 3 master league people(in a row) in 3 vs 3 placement to get into masters.

 

[Crazy_Dead]

Did 5 games 1v1's, won 3 lost 2, came gold spot 10.
Did 5 games 2v2(with my friend), won 4 lost 1, came Bronze spot 84.

So yeah, bug or just that we met total newbs?

 

[Sevion]

Game performance also counts.

 

[Slapshot136]

So yeah, bug or just that we met total newbs?

I think it's just a lot harder to get a good rank in arranged team games

 

[YourFace]

I think it's a combo of your other ranks(solo, 2's 3's) + how high you score relative to the amount of time it takes to win, and your opponent. So if you're in gold, and you lose to silver, and you have no other ranks, then you'd be put to bronze cause you're just starting out with 2's

 

[Sevion]

Not sure what you mean. I think it's much, much easier to get high ranked in Teams.

It takes me only a few hours to get Masters league in Teams, yet it would probably take me a month or more of playing to get Masters league in 1v1.