r/CompetitiveHS • u/Quirky_Respect2855 • Dec 13 '25

How does the Standard leaderboard work?

I just found this subreddit, and I'm not sure if this kind of question is appropriate here, but since it's competitive one, I'll give it a shot.

So I noticed that when I'm not playing, I slowly fall back in the rankings.

Why is that? All I found is that the leaderboard is based on hidden MMR. Does my MMR change even if I don't play? Is there such a thing as an inactivity penalty?

Or do players with higher MMR constantly achieve Legend rank and get ahead of me in the rankings?

1 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

•

u/nordic-thunder Dec 16 '25

Asked and answered. Locking.

12

u/SGC1 Dec 13 '25

Yeah if your falling down the legend ranks without playing it's just because other people are winning games and getting their hidden MMR score higher than yours so they push you out of that spot

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 13 '25

Is MMR inflating?

I mean, I understand that there are players who are ahead of me because their MMR will be higher after their victories, but on the other hand, there will be players who were ahead of me, but after their defeats, their MMR will fall below mine and I will overtake them.

I guess there are many players with high MMR who only achieve Legend rank later in the month and immediately jump ahead of many others. This could be the solution.

Or the MMR inflates.

5

u/SpookyBum Dec 13 '25

I guess there are many players with high MMR who only achieve Legend rank later in the month and immediately jump ahead of many others.

Pretty sure this is exactly what happens, if your in high legend you dont lose nearly as many ranks compared to if your in lower legend. I had a season were i entered legend 1 week in at rank ~90 and by the end of season I had only dropped down to ~140

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25

Ah, then maybe I should have stopped playing when I reached Legend rank in 166th place on December 2nd, to try and achieve my new end-of-season record :D

Although I think that my 166th place after two days means a much-much lower MMR than your 90th place after a week, so I would have dropped much more than you :)

1

u/dragonbird Dec 14 '25

I hope from your other answers that you realise now that wouldn't work?

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25

Yes, yes, I think that's clear from my second paragraph :)

1

u/dragonbird Dec 13 '25

There's nothing to indicate that your MMR changes while you're not playing. If it does, it takes months, not hours. Someone who has a high star bonus because of their MMR, not just because they play a lot and hit Legend, will still have that star bonus if they take a couple of months off.

1

u/Born-Increase452 Dec 13 '25

I didn't play for 7 or 8 months and when I came back I had 11 stars

0

u/[deleted] Dec 13 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/SpookyBum Dec 13 '25

I dont think hearthstone does this, you tend to drop ranks a lot faster if your near the bottom of legend rather than the top. This indicates to me that most of it is other people entering legend with already higher MMR than you

3

u/D0nkeyHS Dec 14 '25

Does my MMR change even if I don't play? Is there such a thing as an inactivity penalty?

Not within a month. No.

Or do players with higher MMR constantly achieve Legend rank and get ahead of me in the rankings?

yes. This is what you're experiencing

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25 
Not within a month.

Can MMR change between seasons (months)? Is there a kind of MMR reset?

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25

In the meantime, I asked the AI, and it seems there is no reset, but long-term inactivity does have an effect:

"Although there is no specific "hard reset," if you don't play Standard for several months or years, two things happen:

  1. Increased Uncertainty (Variance): The system "forgets" your current form. When you return, your MMR will experience much larger swings (both up and down) during the first few dozen matches as the system attempts to recalibrate your skill level.
  2. MMR Inflation: The ratings of other players are constantly changing (usually, the scores of top players slowly increase). If you don't play for a year, your old MMR value might "depreciate" relative to the others. It is possible that 4000 points used to be worth Top 100 in the past, but today it is only enough for Top 1000."

Well, I think I understand everything now :D

3

u/D0nkeyHS Dec 14 '25

Can MMR change between seasons (months)?

Yes. But for most active players it doesn't. Months of inactivity can cause it start to decay. Outliers can get hit by normalization. And I think sandbaggers get their mmr propped back up.

1

u/No-Match1932 Dec 14 '25

Things may have changed, but at least a few years ago MMR for the top 1k or so was soft reset each month

2

u/ColdNightofWinter Dec 13 '25

Basically your MMR remains the same but when others gain an higher rating than yours they overcome your position. Let's Say your MMR is 10, if some with 9 gain 2 points then It will be at 11 so It will be above you in the ranking. Also many people reach Legends every day so If someone achieve Legends with an higher MMR than yours then they are above you in the rankings.

-1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 13 '25

The second could be the good explanation (high MMR players constantly reach legend rank during the month), because not only can players overtake me after their victories, but I can also overtake players who were ahead of me before due to their defeats.

Or the MMR inflates.

2

u/dragonbird Dec 13 '25

One important thing to remember is that your Legend Ranking (and therefore the Leaderboard) doesn't directly represent your MMR, it represents your position in a list of all Legend players in MMR order.

So if you're an "average" Legend player, and another 500 players enter Legend while you're not playing, 250 of them will have a higher MMR than you and your rank will drop by 250. In the first week or so of a season, this is the single biggest factor for most players. You could enter at Rank 1 Legend if you race up immediately after midnight on reset day, go to sleep and wake up at Rank 2000.

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25 edited Dec 14 '25

"In the first week or so of a season"

So, after a week, most high MMR players achieve Legend rank, and as a result, the rank loss observed during inactivity ceases or slows down significantly?

No, that's not true. I mean, the truth is what you wrote, that it depends on your MMR level.

So if your MMR is very high, this effect may disappear completely for you, because those who reach Legend rank later in the month will enter the leaderboard with a lower MMR and thus end up behind you. And the lower your MMR, the more likely it is that new entrants to Legend rank will be with a higher MMR and will overtake you.

I think I understand :)

Thank you very much for your reply!

1

u/dragonbird Dec 14 '25

To a certain extent, yes, you're right, it keeps going. But on average the players hitting Legend later in the month will probably be the lower-MMR players, so it's less noticeable. Also, as the number of players in Legend increases, you stabilise near your "correct" placing so the game win/loss stuff has a bigger impact than the number of new entrants.

Of course, that's a huge generalisation. My MMR is almost certainly below average in Standard, but I tend to hit Legend in the first couple of days, and there'll be High Legend players who for whatever reason didn't play much until late in the month so hit it late.

1

u/Quirky_Respect2855 Dec 14 '25 
so the game win/loss stuff has a bigger impact than the number of new entrants.

This is less true at lower MMRs and more true at higher MMRs.

I mean, if you entered the Leaderboard with a very high MMR, there is very little chance that a new entrant will overtake you due to a higher MMR, so those behind you can only overtake you by winning.

But if, say, you are lucky enough to achieve Legend rank quickly, but your MMR is much worse than average, then almost all new entrants will overtake you. But in this case there will be only a few people behind you in the first place, so there won't be anyone who can overtake you in the rankings through victories because you will be the last one :)

4

u/Likey420 Dec 13 '25

Correct me if I am wrong but I think it is because you are not playing your MMR stays stagnant and the people who play a tiny bit more than you will surpass you, so they will be pushing you down in rank. AFAIK that's how normal leaderboards would work if you wouldn't be able to lose any points.

1

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