Season 4 on the 2012 ladder is drawing to a close, and that means that all ladders will be locked soon.

Here’s what that means for you:

• During the 2012 Season 4 lock, you can’t be promoted or demoted from of your current league or division, and your bonus pool stops growing.
• Though you’ll be locked to a league and division, you'll still be able to play out your remaining bonus pool and compete for standing within your division until the end of the season.
• If you're pursuing a league promotion, then you still have a chance to get there. The 2012 Season 4 lock will go into effect on Wednesday, October 24 at 23:59 p.m. CEST.

The hidden ratings used to determine promotions and demotions will continue to be used for matchmaking purposes, and will continue to update during the 2012 Season 4 lock. So if you play significantly better or worse than your assigned league at the time of the lock, you may find yourself in a different league when 2012 Season 5 begins (after you play your first placement match). Your games during the lock still count.

We’ve recently fixed two issues that arose with the previous season reset:

• The ladder should no longer fail to place players into a league after they have played their placement match(es).
• Players should not inadvertently have a bonus pool with a negative value.

The 2012 Season 4 lock also means that 2012 Season 5 is right around the corner. At 00:01 a.m. CET on Thursday, November 1, 2012 Season 5 will begin. Season milestone rewards will be locked in at this time, and bonus pools will reset. The game will continue doing matchmaking and league placement using results from the previous season.

We’ll see you in Season 5!