Starcraft – How to be downgraded to a lower league

starcraft-2

Last season in Starcraft 2 I was ranked into platinum by deploying a simple Zerg rush strategy. I have not played since then, and I just got back into SC2 wanting to play a more realistic strategy.

The problem is that after my placement game, in which I was destroyed, I have been placed in the diamond league. Every game I am utterly destroyed by players over and over again.

How many times do I need to lose before I can be downgraded to a lower league?

Best Answer

Your hidden MMR (ELO-like rating) will plummet below a diamond threshold even while you remain in Diamond. After just a few (~10) games losing against "evenly matched" opponents, you should start playing games where you are considered "favored", and losing them. Eventually you could theoretically be always matched with bronze, even though your publicly visible league does not necessarily need to match your MMR.

However, I have noticed that bnet seems to only stray so far from your league. I could be wrong about that one, but I know a gold-level friend of mine that, after 25 losses in a row, was still being matched with silver and gold players. They could have rules in place that you can't be matched with someone more than 1 league away from your own.

All this is beside the point at the moment. With the current ladder lock, you will not be demoted or promoted no matter how many losses you incur.

tl;dr: You'll have to wait for the placement match in Season 3.

Related Solutions

Starcraft – How to effectively counter a cannon rush with Zerg

If he's got cannons + gateways just outside your ramp, chances are he has minimal forces at his main base. Get a few mutalisks and/or Nydus worms to harass.

You might want to build a second hatchery to facilitate unit production. The reason a contain (not a 'cannon rush', as you labeled it) works so well against Zerg is because they typically need that second hatchery to keep up with (or surpass, usually) their opponent's unit production.

If you can, use your overlords to scout -- a protoss cannon contain might be annoying, but until he expands, you're just as well off economically as him.

Starcraft – How many divisions are there for each league in Starcraft 2

At the time of this writing there are:

Type      Total     Russia  Taiwan   SE Asia   Europe  Korea    NA    Latin America 
 All      25,670     862     1,707    1,299     7,371  2,678  11,380       373

Broken down by Type and League (approximate numbers)

 X          1v1         2v2         3v3         4v4        2Rand        3Rand        4Rand
Diamond     700         200          50          25         200          200          100
Plat       1400         700         200          50         400          400          300
Gold       1900        1100         400         200         700          700          500
Silver     1900        1300         500         200         800          700          500
Bronze     3500        2600        1600         600        1400          800          400
Total      9400        5900        2700        1050        3500         2800         1800

This data was tabulated by myself based on the website: http://sc2ranks.com/

As to what that split represents, I refer you to this question: What percentage of players get into each league tier

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Starcraft – How to effectively counter a cannon rush with Zerg

Starcraft – How many divisions are there for each league in Starcraft 2

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