[dennistoo]

Should i or not? Currently on 2.7k diamond and the games against high level players is pretty stressful. Should i try to hit master?!

[Xeen]

If it matters to you to have the icon.

If not, just play customs.

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by Xeen

If it matters to you to have the icon.

If not, just play customs.

Understand that Blizz is resetting the ladder soon that makes me to think twice whether i should try to hit master or not. How is master's placement so far? Is the opp facing mostly high level? I have yet to place with someone in a master before tho..

[Benji]

Current bonus pool is around 2750 btw

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by Benji

Current bonus pool is around 2750 btw

Sorry but don't quite get you. My current bonus pool is around 28 which i used up most of it while trying to get myself off from plat to diamond.

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by dennistoo

Sorry but don't quite get you. My current bonus pool is around 28 which i used up most of it while trying to get myself off from plat to diamond.

His point is that unmoderated by bonus, you're either a very low point or negative point diamond player. Given your winrate of 51%, it's likely you have a fair bit to climb to get yourself promoted.

Players don't suddenly get better in Master league, so ladder if you want the icon or really enjoy it. Otherwise play customs (assuming you have players to play with), it's better practice and less stressful.

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by Xeen

His point is that unmoderated by bonus, you're either a very low point or negative point diamond player. Given your winrate of 51%, it's likely you have a fair bit to climb to get yourself promoted.

Players don't suddenly get better in Master league, so ladder if you want the icon or really enjoy it. Otherwise play customs (assuming you have players to play with), it's better practice and less stressful.

I see. Meaning to say lesser the bonus pool the chances of facing higher diamond/plat will be significantly higher? Actually, i just want to complete every highest ranking league SC2 has to offer and of cos, the portrait of 750W.

Guess i will just play some custom or doing 2s/3s/4s with friends cos it is less stressful against 1s.

[Xeen]

Eh, all it means is because your winrate is close to 50% and your point gain is pretty much slowed to nothing, your MMR is sitting where it should be - you'll have to win a LOT of games to bring it up and play against players rated significantly higher.

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by Xeen

Eh, all it means is because your winrate is close to 50% and your point gain is pretty much slowed to nothing, your MMR is sitting where it should be - you'll have to win a LOT of games to bring it up and play against players rated significantly higher.

I see. Infact, i played LOTs of games to bring me up to diamond. Around 100+/-. Sian lah, must play 100+ games again.. think can forget it.

[Xeen]

Heh, if it feels like a chore, just do team games or custom 1v1s.

[sunsetkid]

with bonus pool at 2750, you need around 3100 pts as an E rank diamond or 2750 S rank to be promoted currently. i'm around 2950 after bonus on both my friends accts(E diamond) and not promoted. am playing master leaguers though. I do believe that, just like chess ratings inflation(if you play chess, look at the number of people rated over 2700 elo today compared to 5 years back), sc2 ratings also inflate over time---more master leaguers over time without necessarily being better. so yes, there's probably a chance of squeezing in without being that good as time passes.

i'm sure you remember promoting from plat to diamond, you start playing diamonds. so similarly if you don't face masters, you aren't close to master league yet. but don't give up. you'll get there one day!

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by sunsetkid

with bonus pool at 2750, you need around 3100 pts as an E rank diamond or 2750 S rank to be promoted currently. i'm around 2950 after bonus on both my friends accts(E diamond) and not promoted. am playing master leaguers though. I do believe that, just like chess ratings inflation(if you play chess, look at the number of people rated over 2700 elo today compared to 5 years back), sc2 ratings also inflate over time---more master leaguers over time without necessarily being better. so yes, there's probably a chance of squeezing in without being that good as time passes.

i'm sure you remember promoting from plat to diamond, you start playing diamonds. so similarly if you don't face masters, you aren't close to master league yet. but don't give up. you'll get there one day!

Thanks. Infact, i spent 2 days straight 8hrs a day to get myself off plat to diamond. The time where i before i got promoted was around 2.8k. My current league #1 got promoted with W/L ratio of around 30/40 at around 3.1k pts.

[Draxy]

I don't get what the deal is. Do players avoid ladder so they don't vs high level players?
Why not just play ladder as normal and end up where you end up?
Like I really don't get why you wouldn't just ladder. The match making will put you against opponents and if you cant beat them it will take you down to opponents at your level.

Im not trying to be a smart ass, I just really don't see what the deal is.

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by Draxy

I don't get what the deal is. Do players avoid ladder so they don't vs high level players?
Why not just play ladder as normal and end up where you end up?
Like I really don't get why you wouldn't just ladder. The match making will put you against opponents and if you cant beat them it will take you down to opponents at your level.

Im not trying to be a smart ass, I just really don't see what the deal is.

I guess is the stress level playing against high level players. I recalled playing a high level zerg and also recalled i was leading ALL the way but when he lings rushed into all my main tech buildings, i was unable to contain his massive force of lings and i eventually GG. I did told myself i will stop 1s ladder after getting diamond but it seems like the urge of getting to another level keeps coming.

[sunsetkid]

you have to start by winning more games! the points aren't so important. what matters is the relative points(since bonus pool forever increases).
as a matter of observation, what i have noticed is that, for diamonds to promote to masters, you need a certain number of points off the baseline of your league. to find out the baseline of your league, just take the points of the new-promoters---those with exclamation marks next to their names. those are people who have stopped playing within the week after getting promoted, or just newly promoted. if you add their points+bonus, you will notice that they are roughly around the same, give or take 50 pts. if you are S-rank, you need over 150 pts over baseline to hit master. if yours is a E-rank, you will likely need around 150+310=460 pts off that baseline.

being number 1 in the league doesn't mean closest to promotion. more often than not, it simply means the person has used up all the bonus pool.

[SiF]

Hey guys, maybe you could help me out. I'm trying to grasp what I need to get into Masters in SEA. I've taken in some of the above but I'm still not quite sure how it works.

According to the Blizzard update the top 1-2% of players go into Masters. The top 200 go into Grand Masters ( in NA)

Is this right? 118,615 players on SEA*
The Top 1% = 1186 players / top 2% = 2372 players

But I've heard that it's different here - is it the top 0.5%?


The reason why I ask is because I'm rank #1 diamond with 2750~ pts and have a bonus of 72pts. I am currently ranked #390* in SEA.

I've checked the Master league table and there are people like: http://www.sc2ranks.com/sea/12518/DEUX

Duex has less games, a lower win ratio %, and is ranked below me at #529 in SEA...

So I'm confused... why is this person in the Masters League while I'm not? Does it have something to do with his bonus?

I've been vs'ing almost all Master Leaguers with a few rank 1 diamonds here and there. I've been beating top 100 ranked players so surely my MMR isn't that bad?

I'm sure that if I just keep laddering it'll happen but it would be nice if one of you who clearly understands this better than I could help me understand the entry level and how this base points system works.

* source sc2ranks.com

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by SiF

Hey guys, maybe you could help me out. I'm trying to grasp what I need to get into Masters in SEA. I've taken in some of the above but I'm still not quite sure how it works.

According to the Blizzard update the top 1-2% of players go into Masters. The top 200 go into Grand Masters ( in NA)

Is this right? 118,615 players on SEA*
The Top 1% = 1186 players / top 2% = 2372 players

But I've heard that it's different here - is it the top 0.5%?


The reason why I ask is because I'm rank #1 diamond with 2750~ pts and have a bonus of 72pts. I am currently ranked #390* in SEA.

I've checked the Master league table and there are people like: http://www.sc2ranks.com/sea/12518/DEUX

Duex has less games, a lower win ratio %, and is ranked below me at #529 in SEA...

So I'm confused... why is this person in the Masters League while I'm not? Does it have something to do with his bonus?

I've been vs'ing almost all Master Leaguers with a few rank 1 diamonds here and there. I've been beating top 100 ranked players so surely my MMR isn't that bad?

I'm sure that if I just keep laddering it'll happen but it would be nice if one of you who clearly understands this better than I could help me understand the entry level and how this base points system works.

* source sc2ranks.com

here's my take on it. you are around 2822 pts in a B rank division. it equates to around 2700 in an S-rank division and around 2550 master. since most guys being promoted are around 2600+ now after considering bonus, you will need another 50 to 100 pts and be promoted---this number will increase as time goes on due to increasing bonus.

if you play 10 games every day, i'm sure you will be promoted by the end of the week.
try and see!

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by sunsetkid

here's my take on it. you are around 2822 pts in a B rank division. it equates to around 2700 in an S-rank division and around 2550 master. since most guys being promoted are around 2600+ now after considering bonus, you will need another 50 to 100 pts and be promoted---this number will increase as time goes on due to increasing bonus.

if you play 10 games every day, i'm sure you will be promoted by the end of the week.
try and see!

How do you analysis by division rank? Can you help me do a analysis based on your calculation?

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by dennistoo

How do you analysis by division rank? Can you help me do a analysis based on your calculation?

ranking within the same division does not matter at all. you can be top 10 but close to demotion. if you are talking about division tiers, i think your division is E rank. if you are in a E rank division, your division offset from S rank is 312 pts. meaning your 2700(after adding bonus) would be equal to a 2388 point S rank division. this would mean 2238 master. now, no one in master(after adding bonus) is lower than 2238 because they would have been demoted long ago.
there may be some masters who are 24xx who are playing diamonds and in danger of demotion, so just beating these guys alone isn't enough.

for you to promote, you will probably need to hit the points that would give you around 2650+ master/2800+ S rank/3112 E rank.

so at 2700, you are almost certainly still playing diamonds and established platinums since you are at an established E rank level and with so many games+being around the points level where people newly get promoted. i'd go so far to venture that you are very far from master league. unless you can win a significant proportion of your games from now on, you will stay in diamond.

note that with every passing day, you need to add 12 to that number as 1 point is generated every 2 hrs.

[Xeen]

Points are irrelevant to promotion. It's entirely MMR based.

You need to keep up a MMR climb by consistently winning matches in order for it to consider you for promotion. The more games you've played, the more your MMR is 'figured out', and thus the more wins it takes to shift it upwards.

[dennistoo]

In short, keep WINNING... play more games.

[Xeen]

Promotion is MMR based, not point based.

A lot of newer accounts that have rapidly increased MMR due to their starting winstreaks get into Masters with only a few hundred points.

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by Xeen

Promotion is MMR based, not point based.

A lot of newer accounts that have rapidly increased MMR due to their starting winstreaks get into Masters with only a few hundred points.

yes, but when you look at the bonus pool of such players, its invariably around 2000 or more.
after you add up bonus pool, the total points around around 2600 for master for new promotees.

so points(bonus+actual) would likely reflect the mmr

[Aean(:]

@sunsetkid, i understood nothing you just said. -_- goddamn bringing maths into sc2 doesnt work too well.

[sunsetkid]

okok. to make things simple, SiF is close to being promoted while dennistoo is nowhere near there yet.

[SayfT]

its much harder getting to masters on sea due to the amount of players available. for me, i face a couple of masters players on sea as 'equal' or 'opponent slightly favored', i lose some, i win some but then i get a streak of 4-6 'you are slightly favored' vs players that i manage to lose to quiet a lot and thus losing 50+ points + the mmr loss and have to climb all the way back up only to face 'you are slightly favored again'

So due to the lack of player pool available on sea i simply use sea as warm up before going to NA....maybe I should play on saturdays on sea :> more people perhaps.

[SiF]

Thanks Sunset. So I'm a B rank diamond which has a modifier of +126 points. The modifier means my 2750pts is actually 2624pts. Adjust that score with my remaining bonus pool*win% and I'm on 2662.

This means that even though I'm not at the top of the diamond league table I'm still close to promotion. The two things I have to do is get more points but more importantly lift my W% to around 55% so my MMR and my MAx increase.
Cheers for the help dude.

Dennistoo - there are the division rankings here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=169830

[SiF]

Ok so I still wanted to know more and the guys on bnet said check out this link:

http://sc2mmr.blogspot.com/

So this according to the blog I can work out my MMR, my Division Modifier, and how many games it'll take to get into Master League.

MMR
P = Rank Points
U = Unspent Bonus Pool
B = Total Bonus Pool (2669 as of 12:21PM KST*)
W = Win Percentage
M = Magic Number
Pp = Rank Point Differential (This is what we're calculating)

What division am I in? Pp = P + U*W*2 - B

My division is: 2739 + 54*52%*2 - 2669 = 126.16 - which means my modifier is +126.
+126 = Diamond B

To work out how many games it'll take to get into Masters with my current win%:
W = Win %
Pp = Rank Point Differential
M = Magic Number
A = Average Win (bonus pool adjusted)*
B = Average Loss
G = Games required for promotion. (This is what we're calculating.)

G = 5 + [M - Pp] / [W*A + (W-1)*B]
How many games will it take? = 5+[475-126] / 52%*3 + (52%-1)*11 = 354 / 1.56 + 5.61 = 232 games

Now if I can increase my win rate to 58% it changes to: 354 / 1.74 + 6.27 = 210 games


There is another factor though that could make this a lot less games. This factor is your Moving average. For example if I win 20 straight games the system will calculate that my current skill level is too easy and therefore promote me.

So I've won 5 in a row - now for the other 15 lulz...

Does the above sound right guys?

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by SiF

Ok so I still wanted to know more and the guys on bnet said check out this link:

http://sc2mmr.blogspot.com/

So this according to the blog I can work out my MMR, my Division Modifier, and how many games it'll take to get into Master League.

MMR
P = Rank Points
U = Unspent Bonus Pool
B = Total Bonus Pool (2669 as of 12:21PM KST*)
W = Win Percentage
M = Magic Number
Pp = Rank Point Differential (This is what we're calculating)

What division am I in? Pp = P + U*W*2 - B

My division is: 2739 + 54*52%*2 - 2669 = 126.16 - which means my modifier is +126.
+126 = Diamond B

To work out how many games it'll take to get into Masters with my current win%:
W = Win %
Pp = Rank Point Differential
M = Magic Number
A = Average Win (bonus pool adjusted)*
B = Average Loss
G = Games required for promotion. (This is what we're calculating.)

G = 5 + [M - Pp] / [W*A + (W-1)*B]
How many games will it take? = 5+[475-126] / 52%*3 + (52%-1)*11 = 354 / 1.56 + 5.61 = 232 games

Now if I can increase my win rate to 58% it changes to: 354 / 1.74 + 6.27 = 210 games


There is another factor though that could make this a lot less games. This factor is your Moving average. For example if I win 20 straight games the system will calculate that my current skill level is too easy and therefore promote me.

So I've won 5 in a row - now for the other 15 lulz...

Does the above sound right guys?

yes correct. its quite a bit of math involved, and makes some assumptions, like a constant win-loss rate. whoever wrote the blog is obviously very much a genius. the bonus pool and division tiers serve to make calculations more difficult and confusing.

of note is: constant laddering with no improvement in skill is not going to improve the MMR nor improve promotion chances(of course it can be argued that the more you ladder, the more you learn and improve)

for myself, i'd say that i have improved to around S or A rank diamond level since I first got promoted, but not enough to get master yet.

and for those desperate to get promotions without taking the time and effort, here are some other ways to do so.

1. Maphack
- this is illegal and can get you banned. but i'm certain some people still use it, esp if its just a minimap hack i don't think it can get caught since you won't be camera-panning all day long at the other fellow's base

2. Get someone to play on your account
- people are offering to do it for just USD 20 in ebay
- make friends who are willing to play for you
- only problem is it gets kinda obvious to those around you. 20-30 game winstreaks all of a sudden. the build order and timings shown in the match history which are visible to everyone. your reaction time is almost always fixed. meaning if you usually make your probe at the 3 sec mark, you will make it at the 3 sec mark for almost all games. if someone plays for you and is better, you may well see the probe being constantly made at the 1 sec mark. macro and decision making can improve, but dexterity is very difficult to change overnight.

3. Win-trade yourself
- if you are high diamond and refuse to slog out another 100-200 games, go borrow another acct and play it to your level. then wake up at 4am when there is no one on the ladder and keep on matching yourself for free wins. you'll be matched against yourself since your skill level is the same and you are the only nut awake searching for ladder games on SEA in those 10 or so secs. once you have lost enough games on the loser acct, use it to ladder back up. Rinse and repeat. 20 games later...master icon! and now you can start doing it for the other account the other way round.

[DRFT]

what kind of a question is this? i think its more a matter of IF you CAN make not not IF you SHOULD....... wat r u guna do? start losing games on purpose so u dont promote to master? sad...

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by DRFT

what kind of a question is this? i think its more a matter of IF you CAN make not not IF you SHOULD....... wat r u guna do? start losing games on purpose so u dont promote to master? sad...

*cough* okay, i misinterpret. "is it worth the time" to try to promote to master?

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by dennistoo

*cough* okay, i misinterpret. "is it worth the time" to try to promote to master?

actually, to be honest, at your current skill level of around 27xx, it is going to be very hard to promote.

[DRFT]

still a strange question...... i think u shud answer that yourself.......

[dennistoo]

Originally Posted by DRFT

still a strange question...... i think u shud answer that yourself.......

nothing strange. this is just a question to seek opinion from others whether is it worth to try master with no pun intended.

[DRFT]

well i thought it would be logical to reason that out for yourself since no one here knows your situation

[SiF]

SEA League Breakdown

League distribution
Master 0.6% (532)
Diamond 5.8% (5,254)
Platinum 9.1% (8,332)
Gold 13.5% (12,331)
Silver 18.6% (16,931)
Bronze 52.4% (47,746)

[Crankenstein]

Originally Posted by SiF

SEA League Breakdown

League distribution
Master 0.6% (532)
Diamond 5.8% (5,254)
Platinum 9.1% (8,332)
Gold 13.5% (12,331)
Silver 18.6% (16,931)
Bronze 52.4% (47,746)

Is that true? I thought the leagues were 2/18/20/20/20/20

[sunsetkid]

don't worry. the number of masters will increase. this i GUARANTEE you. the number of diamonds when sc2 was released wasn't that great. these days, diamonds are everywhere.

24h after the master league was released, there were 2 master divisions. a week later, 3. a month later, 6. there will be over 10 by year end. room for everyone guys!!! haha

[SiF]

Nope. They're formed like a pyramid.

Here are the NA stats:
Masters 0.9% (6,224)
Diamond 7.4% (52,163)
Plat 13.0% (91,798)
Gold 16.4% (116,175)
Silver 17.9% (126,535)
Bronze 44.4% (313,930)

[ZoomDog]

Originally Posted by SiF

Nope. They're formed like a pyramid.

Here are the NA stats:
Masters 0.9% (6,224)
Diamond 7.4% (52,163)
Plat 13.0% (91,798)
Gold 16.4% (116,175)
Silver 17.9% (126,535)
Bronze 44.4% (313,930)

That's every account that's completed the 5 placement games. If you exclude "inactive" accounts (only Blizzard knowing what exactly counts as inactive), the ratio pretty close to 20/20/20/20/20.

Originally Posted by sunsetkid

3. Win-trade yourself
- if you are high diamond and refuse to slog out another 100-200 games, go borrow another acct and play it to your level. then wake up at 4am when there is no one on the ladder and keep on matching yourself for free wins.

I vaguely remember reading that they count this as abusing the system, and could get you temp banned. I wouldn't recommend it.

[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by ZoomDog

That's every account that's completed the 5 placement games. If you exclude "inactive" accounts (only Blizzard knowing what exactly counts as inactive), the ratio pretty close to 20/20/20/20/20.


I vaguely remember reading that they count this as abusing the system, and could get you temp banned. I wouldn't recommend it.

actually i think the fella who was doing this was this code S korean who was win-trading. gomtv took action against him but not blizzard because there's nothing in the EULA that states that his action violates it. He didn't modify the game(maphack) or use any known bug(space colossus/immortal warp etc) to his advantage. If someone is willing to lose games to you, then so be it.

[mustapusta]

Originally Posted by sunsetkid

actually i think the fella who was doing this was this code S korean who was win-trading. gomtv took action against him but not blizzard because there's nothing in the EULA that states that his action violates it. He didn't modify the game(maphack) or use any known bug(space colossus/immortal warp etc) to his advantage. If someone is willing to lose games to you, then so be it.

that would be ChoyafOu for playing "scissors paper stone" and have the loser quit the game. both sides agreed but gom didn't like it.

[Tom]

"True" proportion of Masters on SEA

There appears to be a common error in data sorting (this error is regularly made on teamliquid.net too). As Blizzard said, Masters are the top 2% of active players. And remember, Masters only applies in the 1v1 bracket, so we can actually say Masters = top 2% of active *1v1* players.

Now, go to go to sc2ranks.com. Sort by "Bracket" = "1v1" and "Activity" = "Last 14 days". For SEA, the proportion of Masters satisfying this criteria is 2.1% (more or less what Blizzard).

(Interesting, NA Masters = 3%, which could be explained by a large number of players playing one or two games to get promoted, but not playing enough games to be demoted despite having an MMR outside the top 2% of active 1v1ers.)

Masters' levels of activity

One thing we can't see from sc2ranks is how many games an "active player" plays per 14 days. Obviously, you only need to play one game per fortnight to appear in the "last 14 days" bracket for sc2ranks.com. However, my hypothesis is that Masters, while making up 2.1% of active 1v1 players, account for far more than 2.1% of 1v1 games played. This is indicated by, for example, the high proportion of masters players with over 1000, 2,000 or in a few cases 3,000 1v1 games, compared to the general population sitting in the 100s. My (anecdotal) experience is that Masters also play a lot of customs on top of their ladder games (although I could only guess whether Masters play more custom games than non-Masters).

I think a reasonable "guestimate" is that the average Master players between 5 and 10 times as many 1v1s per 14 days than the average player (there are exceptions). So whilst making up 2.1% of active players, they probably account for 10-20% of games.

The most common trend that appears amongst Masters players is number of games played. This suggests to me that starcraft, like most other things, is principally a skill learnt through repetition. While this may annoy some people who attribute some sort of mystique to a player's league, in all probability the mundane truth is that anyone of average intelligence who plays a lot will eventually be promoted to Masters.

[sunsetkid]

I like Tom's explanation. The more you play, the more it becomes practice, the more you improve, the higher your MMR will creep, and inch towards promotion. Unit counters can be trained. Decision making can be trained. Build orders can be practised. Scouting can be turned into a habit. The only problem is actually dexterity which is particularly difficult to train. It is largely inborn and can only be improved to an extent. Some have it better than others. Anyone can duplicate a top player's strategy, build order and scouting time. The only problem lies in the execution. but the way starcraft is made, superior macro and unit composition can compensate for most things---this can be trained.

Its even more apparent when i was in the army. the IPPT test required running, jumping and pullups. running can be trained. some can run faster, some slower, but over 90 percent of people with adequate training can be pushed to the gold standard. it was the same for pullups. but however much you tried or pushed or trained, some people just cannot jump for nuts.