Heroes of the Storm’s third season of ranked play this year will be happening soon, and it will have some game-changing updates. It will begin as soon as the next patch becomes available for download.
One of the new changes will include a third ban during the drafting phase. This will be different from what Heroes of the Storm players have now, which is each team getting to ban only two different heroes.
MMR and rank decay will also be a new change, which will reward more active Hero League players who are in Diamond, Master, and Grand Master. This means that these players, who have placed in the season, but haven’t completed any games for a while, will have their Ranked Points and MMRs slowly decreased. To stop the decay, one Hero League match needs to be completed.
Each league has its own inactivity rules before this decay begins as well, and players can also earn extra “grace period” days. For example, a Grand Master gets 10 inactive days before decay, and can get up to 10 extra grace period days. Meanwhile, Heroes of the Storm players in who are in Master rank get 15 days before decay, and Diamond players get 20 days. Both of these leagues also get an extra grace period of 10 days.
For returning Heroes of the Storm ranked players, Hero League will become a bit more fair for them. Players who play ranked for the first time, for example, can no longer be seeded into placement matches higher than Gold 5. In addition, players who return to ranked after a long break will no longer get re-seeded in placement games based on their performance in either Quick Play or Unranked Draft.
This year’s third season of Heroes of the Storm ranked play will begin on the week of July 13 and end on the week of Sept. 28.
