Ratings, placement and leagues

Your standing on the Patch Clash ladder is two things: a rating (a number that moves with every game) and a league (where that number puts you among everyone else). This article covers both. XP and levels are a separate track: see Clash XP and the season prize pool.

The Vespene rating is not your Blizzard MMR and never changes it.

One rating per race#

Every player has a separate rating book for each race on each ladder. Your Zerg rating says nothing about your Terran; each has its own games, record, peak and league.

Random is not a book. A Random queue is rolled to a real race when the match is made, and the result counts for that race. While you wait, the matchmaker uses the average of your three books.

Where a new book starts#

A brand-new book is seeded so you meet players near your real level from the first game. The first source that exists wins.

First choice: your SC2 MMR. If you have uploaded a replay of your own recent SC2 1v1 ladder game (not a casted game, not a mod game), your starting rating is one third of that MMR, kept between 400 and 2400. A 4500 MMR player starts at 1500.

Second choice: your league answer. If there is no replay to read, your first queue asks which SC2 league you are in:

You answer	Starting rating
Bronze	400
Silver	633
Gold	833
Platinum	1033
Diamond	1300
Master	1567
Grandmaster	1933
Unranked / not sure	600

"Not sure" starts deliberately low: a player who cannot name a league is usually new, and it is far better to climb than to be dropped into Masters games and fall.

Otherwise the book starts at 1500.

A rating you have already earned is never re-seeded. When you first answer the league question, any book with no games that is still sitting at 1500 moves onto the new seed.

How a game moves your rating#

The ladder uses Elo:

• Your expected score against an opponent is 1 / (1 + 10^((their rating - your rating) / 400)). Two equal players each expect 0.5.
• A win gains K x (1 - expected), and is always worth at least +1.
• A loss costs K x expected.
• K is 40 during your first ten games on that book (placement, bigger swings) and 20 after. Each player's K is their own, so a placement player and a veteran can move by different amounts in the same game.
• A draw moves each side by K x (0.5 - expected): the higher-rated player loses a little, the lower-rated gains a little, and equal ratings do not move.
• Ratings never drop below 100.
• A forfeit or leaving the game is a normal loss. A voided match changes nothing.

Beating someone rated well above you is worth a lot; losing to them costs little. That is what lets a seed that was slightly off correct itself quickly.

Placement: your first ten games#

Each book's first ten games are placement. Two things differ during placement:

• Bigger swings (K 40, above).
• The shown rating walks. The board and player cards show a rating that starts at 1500 and moves toward your real rating by a tenth of the gap per game played, and they show whichever is lower: that walk or your real rating.

In practice: if you were seeded low (say 600), you see 600 from game one instead of watching a big number fall. If you were seeded high (say 1900), your shown rating climbs toward it over ten games. After ten games the shown and real ratings are the same.

The matchmaker always uses your real rating, so placement games are still fair. On your player card a provisional book carries a small "P" with "N placement games left, heading to X". The leaderboard's LIVE view ranks by shown ratings; PROV shows where placement players will land once their ten games are done.

Peak#

Your peak is the best rating a book has reached after placement. It stays empty (a dash) for your first ten games, opens at the rating you finished placement on, and only rises from there. A high seed you immediately fell from never counts as a peak.

Leagues#

A league is your share of the ranked field, not a fixed number. Rank every ranked book on the ladder by shown rating, and your league is where yours sits:

League	Rank in the field
Grandmaster	Top 2%
Master	Next 6% (top 8%)
Diamond	Next 12% (top 20%)
Platinum	Next 20% (top 40%)
Gold	Next 25% (top 65%)
Silver	Next 20% (top 85%)
Bronze	The rest

Because leagues are shares, every league always has players in it, and a crest means the same thing whether the ladder has two hundred players or two thousand.

The ranked field is every book with at least one game on the ladder, all races together. A player ranked on three races holds three places in it. Unranked games never add to it. Grandmaster only exists once the field holds at least 50 books (the top 2% has to contain somebody).

Sub-ranks#

Every league except Grandmaster is split into three sub-ranks of equal share. 1 is the top third, 3 is the entry third. The crest shows pips: Diamond 1 wears one pip, Diamond 3 wears three. For example Diamond 1 is 8 to 12% of the field, Diamond 2 is 12 to 16%, Diamond 3 is 16 to 20%.

On the leaderboard, a heading marks where each league starts and a lighter line marks each sub-rank inside it.

Which crest you wear where#

• On the leaderboard each row is a book and wears its own crest.
• On your command bar the crest is your book for the race you have selected.
• In chat the crest next to your name follows the race you are playing or queueing right now, so a Zerg result never wears your Terran crest.
• In the chat's queue line each queued player shows only a league family (no sub-rank, Grandmaster shown as Master) and no rating.

Promotions and demotions#

When a result moves your league or your sub-rank (Diamond 2 to Diamond 1 counts), a cut-in plays over the site:

• Promotion: your crest climbs, every opponent you beat on that race since your last league change is knocked aside on the way (up to eight), and the new crest breaks through.
• Demotion: a quieter version without the parade.

It plays once per match, stays until you click, press Escape, Enter or Space, or change page, and shows as a still frame if you use reduced motion. If you were not on the site when it happened, it plays the next time you open the ranked screen (within a week). Placement games count too, except a book's very first game, which has no league to move from.

Your league can also drift because other players played: if others climb past you, your share changes without a game of yours. Those shifts do not play a cut-in; the crest simply updates.

Unranked games and the hidden rating#

Queueing UNRANKED plays on a separate hidden rating for each race:

• It opens at your ranked rating for that race if you have one, otherwise at your starting seed, and follows it until your first unranked game.
• It moves with Elo like a ranked book but has no peak, streak or league, and is never shown to anyone, including you.
• A ranked opponent in the same game plays a normal ranked game priced against your hidden rating. Their rating moves; yours does not.
• Unranked games still pay Clash XP, without the win-streak bonus, and never count toward the ranked field.

Seasons#

The current season is Season 1, which ends on 3 November 2026 at 00:00 UTC. Nothing resets ratings automatically when a season ends. Your standing matters for the season prize pool: see Clash XP and the season prize pool.

Related#

• Queueing and matchmaking for how the rating is used to find opponents.
• Leaderboard, player cards and match history for the board, the LIVE and PROV views and player cards.
• Clash XP and the season prize pool for Clash XP, levels and payouts.