Matchmaking in Standard

Community Discussion
1

I’m hoping someone can explain the matchmaking in standard for me please because it seems completely messed up.

Also, just for info, I’m not a very experienced player and I haven’t paid for any additional cards therefore my hands are pretty standard.

Having just completed over 500 win matches (per the achievement I recently got) here are my findings …

I cant seem to progress past standard rank Gold 3. What I’ve noticed is that each game seems to rotate between a noob (or some bot) and then an experienced god-like player with cards I cant compete against.

How I know they are a noob / bot is that not only do they play at lightning pace, but some of the choices they make don’t make sense. They also either have Russian like names or names I seem to play against all the time - and always beat.

Then after I beat them, the next match is always against a god-like elite player with cards that I will never beat as I don’t have the cards to compete against them. For example, it will be against a warlock playing the undead - thadius etc combo. Or a rogue playing a mech combo, or a shaman playing da other side combo with full life steal etc etc (you know the usual combos / meta for each class).

And this just keeps going on, and on, and on.

The thing that annoys me the most about this is that during the match making screen, there is a note which states the following:

You are being matched against a player of your skill.

This may be the case … however its kind of mute because I could be the most skilful player in the world … however if I don’t have the cards to compete, then it becomes mute and a wasted effort.

Take boxing as an example, there are very skilful boxers at lower weights who would never beat heavier weights, even if they are more skilful. Therefore being matched against similar skilful players should not be the only variable being considered, which seems to be the case - the cards in each hand should also be considered before being matched with someone.

Therefore, can someone explain this to me?

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2

First of all, there is a (hidden) MMR and your rank. After each season u get bonus stars: a minimum based on your rank (which should be 5 bonus stars, if u reach gold 5 but not plat). If ur MMR is higher, u can get a higher star bonus.

As long as you got bonus stars, u can only be matched against human players who have had the same amount at the start of the season, no matter what their and ur current rank are. After u lost your bonus (in your case at gold 10), u will be matched against players on your current rank.

Your deck or your cards or your experience have no influence on the matchmaking at all. Its only about rank and mmr. This may be unfair in some cases, but this is the current state as far as we know.

Then there are bots. Blizzard bots and sometimes third party bots. You can identify blizzard bots, because they do NOT appear in your friendlist. They exist to help players on lower ranks to win games and maybe also to shorten the waiting time, but these are only guesses. They appear especially after you lost a game, this explains your experience.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

This is kind of normal. The main reason might be, that you reached your current skill level. If u dont have the cards for a top tier deck, this might of course also be the reason. Just keep playing and try to improve yourself (and your collection) rather then searching other reasons as the matchmaking system. I think you can reach higher ranks then and with growing experience (and bonus stars) it will become easier with each season.

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3

Thank you for the response Zol - that makes sense. :slight_smile:

4

I think the Blizzard bots are exists now because we need them to rank up if we are not playing any broken 10 year old kid optimized decks… Blizzard have no respect for players who have backbones anymore. Real players who refuse to play unfair decks can rank up in time only by playing against bots since the game is horribly unbalanced… The aggro became too strong and fast… and also the control to make blocked the other one… These two are killing the rest… this is the game now… If you not play control or aggro… you have no chance anymore in the current meta… Since these are became too strong and DK released… I couldn’t make it to D2 because everytime I get an impossible enemy when I could reach it. The game went into a very bad direction in my opinion and seems like the developers lost control… The game is full of broken mechanics and proves that the developers didn’t test anything well before release… It would be much better if they could release only 1 or 2 expansion per year so have enough time to test… try out something… because they are not doing that… thats for sure…

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5

Your deck might not be good enough for anything past that rank but to be honest, even if it was Blizzard’s matchmaking algorithm is designed in a way to keep people in certain ranks. It’s not a coincidence when people use a top-tier deck and only seem to run into terrible RNG after a few wins.

Essentially, the game is designed to be heavily rng so you get the rank the blizzard algorithm allows. Druids and shamans are generating cards from other classes exactly when needed to save them from lethal etc.

The matches tend to be so theatrical you can essentially see the robbery coming most times. And they do take your deck into consideration when they match you but it’s designed to give you the probability + or - of you losing the match.

For example, I never saw a starfish or the amount of removal before turn 5 till I started playing an aggro deck. If you want skill to matter essentially play a different game. Only play this game if you’re using it as a distraction or you’re a streamer because it’s not designed to be skillful.

6

Another suggestion that i’m starting to do (finally) is to build a new deck and see how it goes. When I’m stuck w/ my hunter deck, I would switch to my warrior, DK, or another deck. If that deck doesn’t work after a few games, go to another deck.

7

My state of the game assessment is that there is very few casual players left. New players decide early on whether they are going to stay and put either time or money into the game, or they decide to quit.

So you, playing with no new cards that vastly outclass the core set, have no chance of winning against even bad players using high synergy decks.

8

Stupid aggro, control and the broken other decks… that is the game… nothing else is working and that is a real problem… control clears the board every round… aggro fill it up again… pathetic and boring… the game is dead…

9

Yes the control decks are so broken that hunt face (aggro deck) in standard size wins by humiliating the blood dk (control deck) or war control while the control decks must win or even humiliate the aggro decks.

Are you confusing combo decks with control decks?