Hearthstones ranking system vs ELO/MMR

After playing for awhile do you like the way hearthstone bases ranks on win streaks as opposed to the way chess and starcraft use a system that gives you rewards based on difference in elo/mmr. Im torn and havn't played hearthstone enough to know.

I also think its relevant how (i assume) hearthstone doesn't match up unranked players with ranked players, whereas sc2 does.
Its really weird how you can play an unranked player, and only see their ranked border, and have no idea if they're actually the same mmr as you, and the same skill as you because their off racing. Or maybe the same mmr as you because they deliberated tanked their unranked mmr.

You need 3 wins in a row for a streak to begin and while a streak is going you get 2 stars per win instead of 1
One loss resets the streak, so you need another 3 wins in a row to start it again
From rank 20-10 you need 3 stars per rank to rank up, and from 10-1 you need 5 stars per rank
Each loss takes a star (even if you were on a win streak)

So the system gives a lot of leeway for a 50:50 win:loss ratio, it will let you climb pretty well even with just 50:50, and it can even let you get away with a 40:60 ratio but thats unlikely, with a 40:60 youll probably end up stuck at the same rank rather than dropping (so 40:60 is as if you are 50:50 in a system without win streaks)

But for people that go 70:30 or better consistently they sky rocket to rank 5, ive only played maybe 3-4 hours of ranked this month total and because i was about 70:30 i got to 6 pretty easily and could get to 5 with 2 more wins since i still have a streak going, if i lose it will take probably 3-6 more wins depending on how much i lose after that first loss

At rank 5, win streaks stop, so you only gain 1 star for each win no matter what, thats why 5-1 takes so long, it will take much longer to go from 5-1 than 20-5, its also the reason i usually stop around rank 5
The last 5 ranks feel so much slower than the others that every loss feels like a huge set back that makes me want to stop

After rank 1 you enter legend rank which has an ELO system
Once youre in legend you cant drop back into the numbered ranks
Getting into legend will put you at 300-500 or so (depending on your win:loss up to that point it could put you even higher or even lower than that to start with), and if you lose youll drop fast to like 1000 and if you win youll go up by a tiny amount, both of that depends on who you win or lose to
Losing to a numbered rank is really bad, where as losing to a legend rank thats higher than you doesnt really matter and vice versa with wins


I like this system more than sc2's system, it lets you climb even on off days, or losses due to rng (which is kindve like when cheese in sc2 causes you to lose even at high levels), or even a build order loss (in sc2 you can lose just because your build order gets hard countered by their build order, in hearthstone i consider a build order loss to be when you dont have or draw any of the cards you need to answer them at all, or when they draw all the cards they need to answer you perfectly)
But still maintains a standard system at high levels and by the time you reach that standard system you have more motivation to keep trying to climb than if that system had started from the beginning of the ladder (since you already invested a few hours getting to that point)

Thats cool. i didn't realize that it switched to ELO in legend.
would you like it if they switched to ELO sooner than legend? maybe around 5, or is the system good as it is?
Im not sure what you mean by the system still letting you climb on off days or after losses though. Since you lose a star or mmr respectively. and in HS you lose a star regardless of if they're above/below you. Whereas losing to someone higher than you doesn't matter as much in sc.

I think the ratio you need for sc2 is steeper to be able to climb leagues. But theres fewer leagues so it might actually be pretty close. Cus you only get promoted quickly if you're above a 90% win rate, but then, maybe if there were 4x as many leagues a 70% win rate would seem to give a lot of promotions too.

The problem with sc2 that i dont like is since you can never tell how close you are to being promoted, its pretty discouraging after playing masters players for awhile to then go on a losing streak against diamond/plat players, because you know you lost a lot of your mmr from losing to people rated below you. or you were just never close anyway.

I like the Hearthstone ranking system, its simple yet effective.

I think the sc2 ladder system is kinda outdated. I remember getting placed into gold and playing for like 3 weeks before being instantly promoted from gold to diamond. It was really annoying because i didn't feel like i was progressing

Achilles.42 wrote:

would you like it if they switched to ELO sooner than legend? maybe around 5, or is the system good as it is?

I think its good as is, rank 5-1 is like a buffer, if legend (which is what the ELO system measures) started after rank 6 you could get there through winstreaks which isnt good, so having numbered ranks without win streaks is required

Achilles.42 wrote:

Im not sure what you mean by the system still letting you climb on off days or after losses though. Since you lose a star or mmr respectively. and in HS you lose a star regardless of if they're above/below you. Whereas losing to someone higher than you doesn't matter as much in sc.

Lets say you play 10 games and go 50:50, you lose 3 and think to yourself "its time to get serious", so you start owning and win 5, then lose 2, in an MMR system you will be roughly the same rank, if you are any higher or any lower its due to your opponents skill rather than yours (since it depends on what your opponents MMR was when you lost/won) and your badass winstreak amounts to nothing
In hearthstones system if the same thing happens you lose 5 stars but gain 8, so your net rank gain is 3 stars from the win streak bonus
And once you start a win streak your motivation to keep it going is really high, it feels a lot better than a win streak in sc2

So even though you are 50:50 you still gain ranks, even 40:60 can gain ranks by winning enough games in a row to offset the losses you get (i said its unlikely because you need to win a lot of games in a row for that)

Achilles.42 wrote:

I think the ratio you need for sc2 is steeper to be able to climb leagues. But theres fewer leagues so it might actually be pretty close. Cus you only get promoted quickly if you're above a 90% win rate, but then, maybe if there were 4x as many leagues a 70% win rate would seem to give a lot of promotions too.

Its basically the same
Hearthstone rank 25-20 is like sc2 bronze, 20-15 is silver, 15-10 is gold, 10-5 is plat, 5-1 is diamond, under rank 1 and above legend 200 is masters and legend 200-1 is grandmaster
Looking at the ranks in tiers like that is pretty accurate, though since the ranks are reset monthly your likely to have legend players at rank 20 (so like a masters player playing in silver league) pretty often
Hearthstones system doesn "seem" to give a lot of promotions, it does, in a day with a 70% winrate and constant win streaks you can go from 20-10, (so like silver to plat) which is very unlikely in sc2's system with the same win rate
And even with an even winrate you can still climb as long as you get win streaks at the right times (which you have some control over rather than hoping on getting matched up against higher MMR players randomly), it will just take longer than a day

Achilles.42 wrote:

The problem with sc2 that i dont like is since you can never tell how close you are to being promoted, its pretty discouraging after playing masters players for awhile to then go on a losing streak against diamond/plat players, because you know you lost a lot of your mmr from losing to people rated below you. or you were just never close anyway.

Yeah the league division placement thing seems to have nothing to do with being promoted, you can be number 1 in your league division with a great ratio and still be stuck in w/e league you are in and its really annoying
They should re-do it so that thing actually represents your progress to the next league, right now it doesnt really represent anything

pat1487 wrote:

Yeah the league division placement thing seems to have nothing to do with being promoted, you can be number 1 in your league division with a great ratio and still be stuck in w/e league you are in and its really annoying
They should re-do it so that thing actually represents your progress to the next league, right now it doesn't really represent anything

Indeed. almost every time i've been promoted, with maybe one exception, i haven't been in the top 8. The only thing thats useful is when it promotes you it resets your accrued points from your old league and sets a new value for your points within your new league proportional to your mmr compared to the other members in your division. But once you start playing again it loses meaning.

After you explained the HS ranks more i like them a lot. its possible LoTV will include some sort of change, because they continued tweaking it in HoTS with features like mmr decay. Its really unlikely for the new system to be anything like HS, but it'd be nice if they removed or redid the current divisions/ranking system and implemented something better.

And i like your point about win streaks being much more rewarding in HS. A lot of times i dont even notice im on a win streak in sc, and only realize when i look at my match history and am like "oh, i guess i was playing well today even though i felt frustrated"