Leagues

LEAGUES

League Overview

It is not currently known how leagues are divided, but it is certain that they each contain a certain percentile of players. I estimate that to be this:

Top 10% - Diamond
10-25% - Platinum
25-45% - Gold
45-70% - Silver
70-100% - Bronze

This means that the required MMR to be placed within each league is dynamic. You may need a 2200 MMR to join Diamond on release day, but after a year that may change to 2300. Your league placement is always relative to other players. Note that currently it is not possible to be placed directly into Diamond league, and that players can only be promoted into Diamond league.

Promotion and Demotion

In order to be promoted to a higher league, your MMR must sit comfortably within the boundaries of that league, meaning you'll need to be averaging a 50% win rate against those kinds of players. If you are a 2250 MMR Platinum player who typically faces Diamond players, you will need to not only average a 50% win rate against those Diamond players, but also maintain a much higher win rate against any Platinum players you may encounter. Once your MMR reaches a certain threshold you may be eligible for promotion.

The system periodically re-evaluates your placement every X games. X varies and nobody knows because Blizzard is explicitly not telling us, however according to a recent interview with Dustin Browder, your initial promotion or demotion will be evaluated after about 30 games. These are called "review checkpoints" and it is important to remember that the result of the promotion or demotion reflects your persistent MMR relative to other players, and may not be consistent with the result of your most recent game. If your eligibility for promotion remains unchanged at the time of checkpoint, you will be promoted.

For example, if the Diamond MMR breakpoint is 2200 and your MMR is 2250 at the time you hit a review checkpoint, you would be promoted.

Dropping down to a lower league works the same way, only by losing.

You do not need to reach #1 (or any particular rank) in your division to get promoted.

Divisions

Leagues comprise a number of divisions that are all ranked equally. Divisions cap out at 100 players. As a division gets closer to 100 players, a new division may be created with new players evenly distributed across each division until some eventually start capping out.

RATING

The important thing to know is that rating only determines your standing within your own division. And even then, only indirectly, because you are playing against opponents beyond your division's player pool.

Team Ratings

Your team wins or loses as a whole. If your partners left the game early and you stuck around to defeat your opponents, your entire team will be credited with a win.

"Rating Inflation" and the Bonus Pool

The Bonus Pool is a pool of points that are awarded whenever players are placed into a new League. The Bonus Pool also accrues over time. Whenever a game is won, an amount equal to the rating earned is deducted from the Bonus Pool and added to the player's rating.

This has the effect of increasing player ratings over time. On the surface, this appears to be a negative thing. However, War3's Ladder system had XP decay beyond a certain level. Rather than forcing players to play games in the fashion War3 used, SC2 encourages players to play by generating a Bonus Pool.

With a matchmaking rating system, the way points are assigned is as follows. There is a default point assignment (was +/-12 for wow, seems similar in sc2) for an "equal match result". The amount won or lost in any given match, though, is determined by comparing your displayed rating to your opponent's matchmaking rating. This is why many people are experiencing huge gains for wins and small losses. It's because they haven't played enough to raise their displayed rating to their matchmaking rating. They may be matched as an 1800 matchmaking rating, but are at 1300, so if they win against an equal opponent (1800 matchmaking), they get the points of a 1300 beating an 1800, which may be +20 or something. The opponent compares his displayed rating to your matchmaking rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will lose -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default).

One huge misconception people I feel like people need to learn the truth about:

The bonus pool WILL NOT cause inflation of ratings in the long run as long as it only modifies your displayed rating and not your matchmaking rating, which appears to be the case. In the long run, displayed ratings converge to matchmaking rating, so if matchmaking rating is unaffected there is no long term effect.

An example:

I start with a big bonus pool and win up to 1600, and my matchmaking rating is 1700. Alice wins the same amount against similar quality opponents but with no bonus pool and goes to only 1350 or so, but also with 1700 matchmaking rating, because matchmaking is totally unaffected. Now in my games I will only be looking at winning +13 or so from my opponents who are 1700 matchmaking, while Alice is looking at something like +16 or +17 from her 1700 matchmaking opponents. I'm looking at -10 or -11 from losses, while she's looking at -8 or so from those same people. Eventually the result over a long enough period is we both end up at 1700 if no change in skill happens.
Even if I got enough of a bonus pool to get to 1900 or something, once that runs out I'm going to lose more for losses than I get for wins against people who are my skill level until I get to the appropriate level. The bonus pool just functions to get people's displayed rating jump started so if they took a break they can jump to their rating more quickly.

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