In the most recent Heroes of the Storm patch, placement matches were introduced into Hero League to attempt to get players closer to their "true" ranking after the soft reset. However, this resulted in many players experiencing unintended problems with their rankings. Blizzard has recognized that there are problems, and are taking multiple steps to attempt to correct the system moving forward. Here is a quick list of the changes that are coming:

20 Placement match requirement

• Moving forward, players who have already played through their placement matches and received a rank during a previous season will not need to play another 20 placements when ranks are reset with future season rolls.  New seasons will only require veteran players to complete a couple of placement games in order to receive their ranks.

Conservative initial rankings

• With future season rolls, we are planning to tighten up this initial placement so that you receive a ranking that is more closely tied with where your MMR indicates you should be.
• Among the lower ranks we believe we were a little too careful in giving out initial placements. In the coming days, we’re going to improve initial placement for the mid to lower ranks.
• Additionally, we’ve taken steps to limit potential rank inflation in the future, so your rank and rating are more likely to stay closely aligned.

Highly rated players and Ranks 5-1

In our last major patch, a change was made which removed bonus points from the top five ranks.  As a result, highly skilled players who have also played a large number of games were not receiving enough points after wins to allow them to rank-up.

• This is not an experience we’re happy with, and we’re going to add bonus points back to the upper ranks so that top players can more easily return to their proper rankings.

Source: Blizzard Entertainment