Seasonal Ranked Update

How does Dota 2 Seasonal Ranking work?The new Seasonal MMR system took effect Nov. 22, 2017. The first season will last from November 2017 to May 2018.

Before you make another thread in ALLCAPS about how Dota 2 is ruined, dead, dying, etc. first...take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Your MMR has not been deleted and it has not disappeared.

This update is an overhaul of the ranked matchmaking system in Dota 2. It will simply be displayed differently.


Before moving on to the next section, it is highly imperative that you locate your towel. Once your towel is in your possession, you can use it to wipe away any saline liquids that may have accumulated around your ocular cavities if you have just now heard about the new MMR update. Remember, if you're gonna survive out there, you've really got to know where your towel* is.


How it all works... (Science!)

Dota 2 now uses a tiered medal system to display your in-game rank, similar to games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. There are seven levels of rank medals (fig. 1), and within each level are five stars of progress to earn towards the next Medal.

These medals are: Herald, Guardian, Crusader, Archon, Legend, Ancient, and Divine.

Figure 1:



How does Dota 2 Seasonal Ranking work?



If you have previously calibrated your MMR in Dota 2, you will still need to recalibrate. These new calibration matches will be seeded based on your previous MMR, similar to International ranked matches. As with International ranked, typically you can only lose or gain roughly 500 MMR when recalibrating. If a 1k player does amazing in recalibration they won't automatically calibrate to 5k. At best they will probably get about 1.5k MMR.

Everyone will begin as unranked at the beginning of a new season. You will need to play 11 matches to complete your new calibration. Although calibration is typically 10 matches, most players are reporting that their rank is not updating until their 11th match.

Once you finish your calibration matches, your true rank will be assessed and the proper rank medal and level will be granted to you based on your performance and the outcome of your calibration matches.

Your calibrated rank is not based on your win/loss ratio during your calibration matches but on your game performance and impact, which includes things such as gpm/xpm, hero/building damage, support actions, kill/death/assist ratio and several other factors.

While your rank medal will be reset at the start of every new season, your MMR will not be. That means whatever MMR you have at the end of the season, will be the same MMR used to recalibrate you at the beginning of the new season. If you calibrate at 3k at the start of season 1 and then climb to 4k by the end of the season, when you start season 2, you will recalibrate in the 4k bracket.

Rank medals are based on your performance in both solo and party ranked games, with a heavier weight given to solo ranked game performance. Ancient and Divine medals can only be achieved by playing solo ranked games. Party ranked will not count towards medal progression beyond Legend 5.

Players who achieve a rank medal of Divine 5 (the highest rank) will now have a leaderboard number listed with the medal that broadcasts their position among other players. This leaderboard position will always be displayed alongside the medal and will be visible to all players in the game and on your profile.

Your in-game profile will always show your highest obtained rank medal for the season. A numeric MMR will still be visible on your profile but only to you. To see your MMR, click on "My Profile" and then "Stats."

*Note: While you cannot lose a medal rank once obtained (until the next season) you can and do still lose MMR. So if you achieve a certain medal rank but then drop 1000 MMR, you will still retain that medal rank until the start of the next season, at which time your new calibration matches will be based on your current MMR not your medal rank. Only your highest obtained rank medal is obtained for a season. Your MMR is *NOT* protected from loss in any way.

Medals vs. MMR




If you were a 3k solo player before this update then you will probably still be a 3k solo player (or close to it) after you recalibrate. Although players will now be ranked by medals, the matchmaking system will still function similarly as the Dota 2 client and servers continue crunching numbers in the background. How will these numbers be crunched? I don't know exactly. That's IceFrog's job.

According to preliminary findings, MMR to medal conversion appears to be as shown below. Each star rank equals 140 MMR. Valve has not yet released specific MMR/rank tables so this information may be subject to slight variation.
  • Herald: 1 - 839
  • Guardian: 840 - 1709
  • Crusader: 1710 - 2579
  • Archon: 2580 - 3449
  • Legend: 3450 - 4319 
  • Ancient: 4320 - 5189
  • Divine: 5190 - 6055+
According to this data, there is also speculation that MMR values and curves have been deflated.The higher your previous MMR, the greater the deflation may be. So while it may appear that you have lost MMR, if you have maintained the same amount of skill then you may have been affected by MMR deflation.

Some other things to take into account which may contribute to a decrease in MMR are players that have used boosting in some form or another as well as players that have spammed heroes to climb to a certain MMR. While that may work for grinding MMR, it doesn't reflect real skill and this may be reflected when they recalibrate.

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