Servers, regions and ping
Which Patch Clash servers exist, which SC2 region each one needs, how Vespene measures your ping and decides which servers are on by default, why a server can be locked, and how the server for a match is chosen so neither player is stuck on a terrible connection.
Every ranked match is played on one game server. You choose which servers you are willing to play on; the matchmaker only pairs players who share at least one, and then picks the fairest of the shared ones. Open the Servers door (globe icon) on the ranked screen's toolbar to see all of it. The icon's badge shows how many servers you have selected.
The servers and their regions#
SC2 has three login regions, and they cannot see each other: channels, friends and lobbies on one region are invisible from another. Each game server belongs to a region, and both players must log into the match server's region in SC2.
| Region to log into | Servers |
|---|---|
| Americas | US West, US Central, US East, Brazil, Singapore, Australia |
| Europe | Europe |
| Korea/Taiwan | Korea, Taiwan |
Two things trip people up:
- Brazil, Singapore and Australia are Americas servers. A player in Sydney logs into the Americas region to play on the Australia server.
- The region you log into and the lobby's Game Server Location are different settings. The region decides who can see the lobby at all; the Game Server Location dropdown in the lobby picks the datacenter. The host sets it to the match server.
Locked servers#
A server is locked (a padlock, not clickable) when you have no Battle.net-verified character on its region: "Needs a verified Battle.net ID on this region". Results are checked against the players in the replay, and a replay from a region the site cannot tie to you could not be verified.
To unlock a region, make sure your Battle.net account has a StarCraft II character on that region (log into it in SC2 if you never have), then run the Battle.net link again from your settings. It rescans the Americas, Europe and Korea/Taiwan. The Servers sheet has a Connect Battle.net link for exactly this.
How your ping is measured#
When you open the ranked screen signed in, your browser measures your latency to each server's area:
- It warms a connection to every area first, so connection setup is not counted as lag.
- It then times three samples to each area and keeps the fastest, because network noise only ever adds time.
- An area that cannot be reached at all is left blank rather than given a made-up number.
Results are remembered for six hours. Re-measure in the Servers sheet throws them away and measures again; while you are searching it updates the numbers but does not reshuffle your selection.
Be honest about what this is: the probe measures round trips to cloud datacenters in the same areas as Blizzard's servers, not to Blizzard's game servers themselves. It is a strong hint, not gospel, which is why every verdict below is a default you can override.
Which servers are on#
Each server gets a default from your ping:
| Your ping | Default | Can you change it? |
|---|---|---|
| 130 ms or less | On (pin icon) | Yes, turn it off and it stays off |
| 131 to 250 ms | Your call | Yes |
| Over 250 ms | Off (snail icon) | Yes, opt in and it stays on |
| Not measured | Your call | Yes |
- Your decisions are remembered. A fast server you switch off stays off even when a later measurement says it is fast. A slow server you opt into stays on.
- If everything is slow, nothing is switched off for being slow. You will not be locked out of the queue because you live far from every server.
- You always keep at least one server. You cannot untick your last one, and if a new measurement would leave you with nothing, your own picks come back first.
- On your very first visit every server you can use starts selected, and the ping defaults trim from there.
- Server chips are locked while you are searching. Leave the queue to change them.
More servers selected means more possible opponents. If you are waiting a long time, check whether a server you can tolerate is switched off.
The server question#
If you switched off a server that measured 130 ms or less for you, and a player in your rating range is waiting on exactly that server, the queue asks you whether to play there. Play on it adds the server to this search and the match is made. Keep waiting leaves your servers as they are, and you will not be asked about that server again in this search. Tick Remember my preference to make either answer stick: you will never be asked about that server again on that ladder. You are only asked about servers in a region you have a Battle.net character on.
How the match server is chosen#
The matchmaker only considers servers both players selected. Among those it picks in three tiers:
- Servers both players measured and can play on (neither over 250 ms). It picks the one where the worse of the two pings is lowest, so neither player is dumped on a bad connection so the other gets a great one. The lower-rated player's ping carries a little extra weight, and ties go to the lower combined ping.
- Servers one of you has no measurement for, if tier 1 had nothing.
- Servers you both measured where one of you is over 250 ms, least bad first, only as a last resort.
Remaining ties follow a fixed server order, so the choice is stable. It never guesses your ping from your opponent's: estimating one player's latency from the other's once sent a London player to Australia, and that shortcut is gone.
If neither player has any measurements (for example, both queued from the in-game overlay, which does not probe), the pick falls back to the fixed order among your shared servers. Selecting only the servers you actually want avoids surprises there.
Related#
- Your first ranked match for the SC2 side of logging into a region and hosting.
- Queueing and matchmaking for how shared servers feed into pairing.
- Ranked ladder FAQ for "we could never find each other".