We're getting a large update to Hearthstone's ranked play! Gone are the different ranked numbers, we're going to metals and gemstones!
- More rewards in ranked! You can now get card packs from the newest expansion.
- You will earn your seasonal card back as soon as you hit 5 wins for that season - no more waiting.
- First-time rewards are available as well. Each time you hit a new rank floor for the first time, you'll get swag.
- There are five leagues in the new system, each with 10 ranks. Legend rank is not changing.
- Every season you get reset to Bronze 10.
- Based on your rank in the previous season, you'll gain bonus stars to get back to your original ranking.
- The changes go live with the April ranked play season.
Quote From Blizzard Last year, we started exploring ways we could make Ranked Play experience better. Primarily, we wanted to figure out ways to make the matchmaking experience fairer, and give players more rewards for playing in Ranked, all while preserving the essentials of the core system that’s already in place.
Starting with the April 2020 Ranked Season, we're replacing the existing ladder in Ranked Mode with a new league system. There will be five leagues in the new system, each made up of 10 ranks. Players start each season at Bronze 10, and climb their way to Bronze 1 before graduation to the Silver league, and on through Gold, Platinum, and Diamond before hitting Legend. Each league will also have rank floors at rank 10 and rank 5, where you cannot go down in ranks for match losses. The New Player ranks will have their own league that runs from ranks 40–1. The Legend ranks will continue to work as they currently do.
Star Bonuses
To go from one rank to the next—say, Gold 10 to Gold 9—you will need to gain three Stars. You’ll gain one Star for each match you win, and lose one for a loss. At the start of each season, players will be awarded a Star Bonus based on their performance the previous season. This Star Bonus acts as a multiplier on the Stars you earn from each win.
For example, if you have a Star Bonus of 5x and you win a game, you’ll get five Stars instead of one. If your winning game is a part of a win streak, you’ll get double that: 10 Stars! Upon hitting each ranked floor in your climb, your Star Bonus will be reduced by one. When playing with a Star Bonus you’ll be matched by your matchmaking rating (MMR), meaning you’ll be matched even more precisely with players of your similar skill level when climbing!
Ranked Rewards
As mentioned earlier, we’ve reworked the rewards you earn at the end of each season of Ranked play. Your reward chest can now contain card packs from the latest expansion, Rare cards, and even an Epic card, based on the rank you achieve. Five wins at any rank will also award the seasonal card back immediately, instead of at the end of the season.
There are also brand-new first-time rewards. Primarily aimed at helping new players, these one-time rewards of Classic card packs, Rare cards, and Epic cards will be granted immediately upon hitting a ranked floor for the first time on your account. Hitting Legend for the first time in the new ranked system will grant a random Classic Legendary card!
Ranking Up To End Of Season Reward First-Time Rewards Legend 1 Latest Expansion Pack 1 Random Classic Legendary Card Diamond 5 1 Random Standard Epic Card 1 Classic Pack Diamond 10 1 Latest Expansion Pack 1 Random Classic Epic Card Platinum 5 2 Random Standard Rare Cards 1 Classic Pack Platinum 10 1 Latest Expansion Pack 1 Random Classic Epic Card Gold 5 2 Random Standard Rare Cards 1 Classic Pack Gold 10 1 Latest Expansion Pack 4 Random Classic Rare Cards Silver 5 2 Random Standard Rare Cards 1 Classic Pack Silver 10 1 Latest Expansion Pack 4 Random Classic Rare Cards Bronze 5 1 Standard Rare Card 1 Classic Pack
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Comments
This system of bonus stars combined with winning streaks will actually help veterans to climb the ladder very quickly. But once you loose all your bonus stars (after reaching ranked floors) you will have to grind your way up to legend as usual. You can get a max of 8 bonus stars. You loose one per floor. So if I am not wrong...Diamond 10 is rank 5.
I've been playing since late 2018, and have never touched ranked. I only do casual for dailies, the solo stuff, and arena. This might make me forget about arena and start trying to rank. I'd been planning to start ranking eventually, this could accelerate that.
I've read there's an option to skip from rank 50 to 25, I don't remember hitting it, but I must have because I'm rank 25.
I wonder how this will work FIRST reset. We still get star multiplier from old system rank placement?
I'm prette sure everyone starts out even (so with no star multiplier) when the change hits in April. This way the veterans have a chance to feel the pain of grinding at lower ranks for one time.
I could be wrong tho.
I assume the rewards are cumulative? That is, if I go from Bronze 10 to Silver 3, I get the rewards for Bronze 5, Silver 10, and Silver 5 (totalling 3 standard Rare cards and one card pack)? That's what I'd assume but it isn't clear to me.
Are the cards golden? Pity if they aren't, I like the golden cards and looked forward to getting a few every month...
Has to be - otherwise the rewards wouldn't make sense. i.e. Silver 10 = Legend
Post has been updated with all the information we have for the new ranked system.
It's a bit of a shame that they went with something so generic. I enjoyed the unique flavor that the system had, even if not it's progression.
While I agree that this is an improvement, as it will be easier for incoming players to understand (and thank god, new players won't face seasoned ones anymore), there are some things I'll miss. It was enjoyable, as a Rank 5 player, to face that wave of tougher decks at the start of every month. If this new matchmaking works as I think it does, the type of opponent we'll be facing will be quite homogenous.
It's the beauty and the upsetting nature of a more free, rank-based system of matchmaking like past Hearthstone's or Shadowverse's. On one hand, there's more variety in the type of opponent - you could face someone not trying, or someone tryharding to the next rank - but on the other hand, you can also feel oppressed or stagnant in certain areas. It's a very organic system. This new type of matchmaking will put you more against opponents of your level, and as I've experienced in other games, trying to fight against a system like that can feel rewarding when you break through, but more often than not is depressingly stable. On the bright side, for better players, that burst of stars at the season start should be pretty fun, and like Shadowverse, legend is similar to Grandmaster - matchmaking is still rank-based.
Overall, I look forward to seeing what kind of experiences this will bring. It's still a cohesive ladder, but with this new matchmaking, it will also be different for everyone, which is tough to wrap one's head around. It would be interesting to see an article which discusses these things - their merits, demerits, and how it relates to other games -, as this feels like the part of the announcement which was granted the shortest time but will have the most impact.
Twitch Chat will always be Rank 25 in my heart, but this system hopefully provides a bit more engagement each month (to get (back) to Legend), avoids experienced players matching up against newer players, and feels more rewarding. On paper, it's definitely more rewarding - more packs! More cards! But I'm talking about how hard it'll be (and I know it's not "hard", it just takes time, so let's say how much time it'll take) to get Legend.
Wonder how it'll work. Would it be just the same system without the ranked numbers? Would it be an ELO-based system? Hopefully there will be clarity over how to rank up.
If it means you dont rank down from tiers every season, I welcome it.
everyone starts from the bottom tier, bottom rank every month but you get bonus star multipliers based on where you ended the previous season
they said it will be possible to even get 22 stars in one game at the beginning, as those bonuses will get lower the more you use them throughout the season
it was all in the reveal video earlier today
I care less about the ranks or “leagues” as Dean called them. But dat loot tho! Give it to me NO
The Platinum color looks a little rough IMO. They should give it a little bit more shine if it's one step above gold.
Sounds good, also gives more incentive to actuallly rank up instead of just grinding for rank 5 every month and then never touching the mode again.
Not influenced by LoR at all.
Jokes aside this is why LoR being good actually favors HS players. The HS dev team is encouraged to improve or tweak their game in order to be up to par with some modern stuff, like the ones introduced in LoR like the economy system and now the ranked flavour (granted it already existed in other games but ya know what i mean)
It isn't that I don't agree with you, but it sounds like they were working on all of this stuff for a long time before LoR came out. I wouldn't be surprised if all of this stuff would have happened anyway even if LoR never existed.
Eternal has a similar ranked system as well, so I don't think they introduced it because of LoR.
thats why i said the ranked flavour already existed. but u can bet that did this cause of how its a standard thing in all games even in like Overwatch, but mainly cause LoR also uses it. for years the bronze, silver etc exists but only now they implemented it? cmon
Don't like that much Diamond being the 1-5 ranks(so many games has that), but still, pretty interesting decision.