Now that Arena Season 6 is on the horizon, we wanted to share some details regarding upcoming changes to the arena rating system in Arena Season 6. With Arena Season 6, arena teams will start at 0 rating instead of 1500, which will allow teams to have more continuous progression throughout the arena season. In addition, we reevaluated item purchases and felt many of them were too difficult to obtain so we will be altering the rating requirements needed to purchase the latest arena items. For example, items with a rating requirement will now be obtainable starting at 1250 rating.

As with the current system, the matchmaking system will attempt to match teams against opponents who are closest to their average matchmaking rating. Starting with Arena Season 6, a team’s average matchmaking rating will be shown in the scoreboard at the end of each match so that you can see where your team stands compared to the opposing team you just faced. All arena teams that are below a 1500 arena rating will always earn arena points as a 1500 rated team. This will allow teams to continue to build up arena points while working on gaining the ratings needed to purchase items.

The most interesting aspect of these changes, in my opinion, is that teams will start at zero rating instead of 1500 now. It raises a few questions, obviously, such as "will teams be able to go negative?" and "how in the hell am I supposed to do enough games to EARN 2200 rating when most teams haven't even earned 1000 rating yet (going from 1500 to 2500 is basically a #1 ranked team)!?"

I think that the latter concern is more prudent than the former. How in the hell am I going to gain 2200 rating? Let's do some math. My team has about a 56% win percentage. Let's say that we win/lose 10 rating on an average match. This means that I would need to play at least 800 games with these numbers before getting up to 2200. While this is doable, it's an aggravation.

I'm going to lunch.