by James Duggan on Jul 31, 2018
The new Warchrome Waste skins have been grabbing most of the Heroes of the Storm headlines recently. However, significant changes to the game’s ranking system is major news, indeed.
Season 3 of Heroes of the Storm’s ranked play is just around the corner, with a number of updates that will dramatically change how the game is played. When the next patch is ready to download, the new season will officially begin.
Among the changes is a third ban in the drafting phase. Currently, each team can ban just two heroes. The third ban has been something that a number of the game’s top players have been discussing for years. As there are now 80 playable heroes, there was more reason to go ahead and introduce the extra ban.
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Another new change to Heroes of the Storm will be rank decay and MMR. The game will reward a greater number of active Hero League Players in Grand Master, Master, and Diamond. So those players who have managed to place in the season, but who haven’t completed a game for a while, will see a decrease in their MMRs and Ranked Points. A single Hero League match needs to be completed to put a stop to the decay.
There are distinct rules for each league before the decay begins, and players are able to earn additional grace periods. For instance, 10 inactive days are awarded to a Grand Master before decay. They can even get a maximum 10 additional grace period days. Players in Master rank are given 15 days before decay. 20 days are awarded to Diamond players. Each league is also given an additional 10 days grace period. There’s also good news for other ranked players. Any player who ranks for the first time, for example, will no longer be eligible for a seeding higher than Gold 5 in placement matches. Further, players who rank after a lengthy time away will no longer be assigned a re-seeding in placement games based on how well they did in either Unranked Draft or Quick Play.
Grand Master and Master players will now be paired with players within a division of their ranking. Players outside of North America and Europe, however, will be forced to queue for one hour for this stricter matchmaking. The changes appear to have grown out of a belief that players value quality matches over shorter waiting times and unfair couplings of experience and skill.
This season’s rank play will commence on July 13, with the action continuing until the week of September 28.