2019 Season 3 – Changes and Updates
2019 Season 3 is the first season that shows off some updates and changes to ranked play within Heroes of the Storm.
Season Roll Dates
2019 Season 3 will begin as soon as our next patch becomes available for download in each region. Check the season start and end dates below to make sure you’re able to dive into the rankings as soon as the season rolls:
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| 2019 Season 3 Start | Week of August 5, 2019* |
| 2019 Season 3 End | Week of December 2, 2019* |
*Exact date may vary slightly by region.
Rank Changes
Your Rank (League Tier and Division) is now determined by your MMR directly and adjusted by penalties, such as Leaver Penalty. As a result, you will see a bit more volatility in your Rank Points changes after winning or losing a game.
Placement Games Count Reduced to 3
Players will only have to play 3 games to be placed in Storm League.
Promotion and Demotion Games Removed
Promotion and Demotion Games will be removed. You will seamlessly transition between League Tiers and Divisions as you earn or lose Rank Points.
Rank Penalties
Leaving a Ranked Draft Lobby or abandoning a Ranked Game will result in 500 Rank Points penalty. Penalized players will be able to slowly redeem the points lost due to penalty by playing Ranked Games.
Ranked matches are still affected normal Leaver penalty, preventing penalized players from playing Draft games until they play a certain amount of Quick Match or Brawl games and matching them with other leavers.
Rank Decay
We’re introducing MMR and Rank decay for inactive Storm League players.
As with Hero League, the decay will affect players in Grand Master, Master and Diamond leagues. Contrary to Hero League, Storm League’s rank decay will also affect unplaced players if their MMR is equal to Diamond League level or above.
The rules will be the same throughout all affected Leagues. At the beginning of Ranked season, inactivity timer will be at 10 days. By playing Ranked games, players will earn extra inactivity time, up to 30 days. When the inactivity timer expires, player is considered “inactive”. Inactive players will slowly lose their MMR and Rank until it decays below Diamond League, or Diamond League-level MMR for unplaced players, or until they play a Storm League match.
By playing a ranked match, inactive player will reset their inactivity timer to 3 days.
Ranked Seasonal Quests
Special Seasonal questlines will be available to all players. It will consist of 4 quests, each requiring a player to win a certain amount of Storm League games. Each quest yields increasing gold rewards.
New quest lines will be available every season, and a player must complete the entire quest line to be eligible for the End of Season rewards. Placement games count towards the quest line progress.
You will see the Ranked Seasonal Quest line progress on the Ranked Play screen.
We’ll be sharing what ranked play rewards will be in our next blog closer to 2019 Season 3 launch.
See you in the Nexus!
There's more to come for Ranked Seasonal Play so please stay tuned!
