There are 2 pools, your rank pool (when you are out of star bonus, you will face opponent of the same rank)
And your MMR pool, when you are playing on a star bonus OR legend rank, you will face players of similar MMR rather than rank.
Yeah, I understand it’s a quote from a dev, but that doesn’t make it true. One “pool” is Legend, Casual and Brawl, which goes by MMR alone. The other “pool” is Ranked and Arena, which goes by rank but uses MMR as a tiebreaker to find the best matches possible. Both pools widen what criteria is acceptable the longer you’re in queue. If both “pools” can expand criteria to the point that you can eventually be matched with someone in the other pool, then they’re not really different pools, even if someone says they are. As I’ve said, at low Legend I’ve been queued against Diamond opponents on many occasions, and that would be impossible if the pools were truly separate.
That is unequivocally Incorrect. I did “make it clear” it’s literally in the next sentence after what you quoted me saying.
Ironic, isn’t it?
The only way someone who’s not playing on stars bonus can be matched via MMR is when he queues into a Legend player.
If you are in Legend and tank your MMR so low, you’ll eventually find silver players. And since nobody else has MMR that low, the game has no choice but to give you random opponents within that range, which are all legit silver players.
The way it works in Legend is kinda counter intuitive but that’s how it’s coded.
Yes. But my point is that if you can be matched against a Legend player then you’re not in a separate pool. Being in a separate pool means you can’t be matched against someone from another pool.
I truly hope you’re not misinterpreting what I am trying to get across. To be clear, what I’ve said in the last few replies are certainly not directed at you in any negative sense. I, in fact, like you very much. 
I would take what this user (that’s me) ever says without multiple grains of salt. Don’t get defensive, my friend (what’s that?).
The thing is, outside of Legend players with low MMR, you will never face another opponent based on MMR.
I don’t remember where I’ve read it but a while ago a dev said that the D5-D1 bracket is the rank with the highest disparity in skills since you can have a guy with a near 11 stars MMR playing with someone who’s basically diamond dumpster MMR.
Okay, so to clarify if you’re Diamond 3, matchmaking never expands criteria to allow you to match against Diamond 1 or Diamond 5, but it can match you against Legend if the MMR is close. Did I get that right, or can it still do so if you wait on queue long enough?
How’s that happen? When the player with 11 stars runs out of stars, is it?
I may be getting this backwards. When you have stars, it’s MMR, right? And when it’s no stars, it’s rank?
I am confused, so I concede.
Well Played
When you are D3 and the system cannot find another D3 player, it will expand to D1-D5, which usually doesn’t happen in standard because there is a ton of players but is a lot more likely to happen in wild & classic because of the small player pool.
I think the way it works for meeting a legend player is different. Because guys who are playing at High legend will exclusively play against other guys who are in high Legend and never against someone playing at 11 stars that’s still in diamond, as we can see in top level streams, unless it’s day 1 of reset within a few hours of play.
You can have a guy in diamond who had a 10 stars bonus at the beginning on the season who barely missed the 11 stars mark playing against someone who’s barely making D5.
Correct, when you have stars or Legend rank it’s mmr, with no stars it’s RANK. Which is why the guy with 10 stars bonus will run out of stars at D5 and possibly meet much weaker opponents at that point since it’s all rank based instead of MMR.
Oh and this just isn’t true. For Ranked and Arena, rank (win/loss record for Arena) is primary but MMR is a tiebreaker. Initially it tries to match same rank and similar MMR, then same rank but with more MMR tolerance, and so on. Just because it’s a secondary factor doesn’t mean it isn’t a factor.
what I know is that games will affect your hidden MMR but it will not be taken into consideration when trying to find an opponent.
There is a hidden MMR for arena but it is not used
https://outof.cards/hearthstone/3152-dean-ayala-confirms-how-hearthstones-arena-matchmaking-works-tracked-skill-rating
- They track a skill rating for players but only use it for data tracking.
- Match outcomes are decided almost entirely by the skill level of the players involved. A fact they know due to the skill rating metric.
As I said… I know for a fact a dev said the D5-D1 bracket of the rank with the highest skill disparity but unfortunately I cannot remember where I read it.
Here’s what I could find so far
After some research, here’s what I found about the ‘‘dumpster legend players facing guys outside of Legend’’
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/5vtyn6/iksar_confirms_change_in_matchmaking_at_legend/de52ttc/
And also https://esportsedition.com/hearthstone/hearthstone-legend-matchmaking-wild-ranked/
This was implemented in the old system but carried over to the new one.
So basically, they prevent dumpster MMR legend players to play against other higher legend players for the reasons above, which means those guys are forced to play against weaker non-legend players. Kinda sucks for them but that’s how it is.
Quite frankly, I don’t buy it and I think Dean is wrong here. I play Arena a lot, and if this is true then, unless I have a particularly high record, the matchmaking should be essentially instantaneous. But it generally isn’t — and I’m talking about with normie records like 3-1. I figured that the reason why it isn’t is that it’s looking for similar MMR.
I could try to figure out how large the Arena community is for my server (Americas). Given that about 50 people last season had a set of 30 consecutive Arena runs averaging 7 wins or better, I could calculate the probability of that happening and estimate the total number of runs in the season. Well, I imagine I could somehow. There’s lots of ways 30 runs can total to 210 or more wins, and I don’t know immediately how to calculate that in a feasible timeframe.
In the meantime, I’ll admit that it’s certainly a tough sell for the typical reader of this post to think Dean is wrong and I’m right here, so I’m just going to drop it.
I’m a bit sad you chose not to reply to the rest of my research, I put a lot of efforts into it 
I think you’re severely overestimating arena’s player base, according to firestone, arena is one of the least popular game mode and most people who still play it are veterans (IMO)
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/rwpgcn/mercenaries_pvppve_the_least_played_modes/
So yeah, I’m not surprised you’re sometimes having a ‘‘hard’’ time finding 3-1 games. It’s about as popular as wild and trust me, we don’t find games instantly in wild.
Hold on, I can only reads so fast
Edit: hmm, unfortunately for your expectations (which I do care about) I don’t have much in the way of reply. The Legend stuff isn’t particularly applicable to my hypothesis that Arena and (non-Legend) Ranked use MMR as a tiebreaker.
Fixed to accurately reflect typical forum thread.
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Mallenroh isn’t typical. Merely inevitable.
Inevitable. Just like you jumping in a thread to correct someone.
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