More than Daily 2 Cents: Ranked Ladder

Currently, Ranked Ladder in Live is quite disappointing. I believe they will improve it, certainly improving its meaningfulness, but there is another aspect that they should work on and they are likely going to forget. They rebalanced their Pass in a good way, so I hope they also improve their Ladder.

Many games use a Ranked Ladder to engage players' competitiveness. It’s not just TCGs, but for this post, I’m mostly going to compare it with the obvious choices: YGO’s Master Duel (MD) and MtG’s Arena (Arena). These 2 are popular TCGs, with flaws of their own, but I believe their Ranked Ladders are better. Well, Arena’s more than MD’s. But let’s go step by step. Also, to clarify, I will mostly be comparing the Bo1 modes.

As I mentioned, there are some key aspects that I want to focus on: (1) Structure, and (2) Meaningfulness. If these 2 are well established, you can then improve other factors like Matchmaking.

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Structure

So what’s the first factor? Structure of a ladder refers to its organization, and it determines how a player progresses (“climbs”). A subfactor is the pacing of it, and I’ll touch slightly on it.

The general structure of Live is very similar to the ones found in MD and Arena. There’s the Ranks and the Tiers. In Live, the Ranks are the Leagues, with a total of 6 (last one being the special Arceus League). MD has 6 “currently”, and Arena has 6 (last one being Mythic which is slightly different).

The Tiers are also similar, which are inside a Rank and serve as minor marks for the player. MD has 5 tiers per rank (except Rookie which has 2) and Arena has 4 tiers per rank. So far, this is still similar to Live (which has 6-4 tiers per rank). HOWEVER, here’s where we start seeing some differences.

In general, MD needs like 4-5 wins per tier, and Arena needs 5 wins per tier. The exact numbers are not that important. Live needs more wins per Tier as you advance. A Tier in Great needs 6 wins, 7 wins for those in Ultra, and 8 for Master. This makes climbing more challenging in Live. If you were to have a 100% WR, it would take you like 100 wins to go from Bronze 5 to Diamond 1 in MD, and 68 wins to reach Mythic in Arena (and then you fight for a position towards top 1200 players). From Quick to Arceus, Live asks you for 118 straight wins.

But that’s not all, because Live is structured in a more punishing way than the other 2. See, MD and Arena have certain protection mechanics as you progress. Generally, when you advance a Tier, you have some leeway and can lose a couple of games before getting thrown back one Tier. When you advance a whole Rank, you are hard protected and can’t “derank”. In Live, you can’t also “derank”, it shares this feature; however, in Live you don’t have any soft protection between Tiers. If you win a game and get to Charizard Tier from Corviknight, and then lose one game, you will regress to Corvi Tier.

What this means for the structure of the ladder is that the Tiers in Live are a figment of your imagination. You could just not have the different named Tiers and have one single straight League (Great, Ultra, Master) and it would effectively change nothing. It is distasteful. It is pointless. Without a soft protection system, not only climbing is more challenging/punishing, it is also masquerading in appearance. The progression you feel is partially robbed, as advancing between tiers ends up sour and baseless.

So summing it up for structure: Tiers are just a visual presentation, where Leagues are what truly matters, and devs should either implement the classic soft protection offered in many other games (not just TCGs), or just be frank and blend all the Tiers in the factual Leagues. The lack of soft protection mechanics also makes the longer road to Arceus more sour, as you need more wins than other ladders (with a 100% WR or not).

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Meaningfulness

But it doesn’t matter how long you have to fight, this is true for many. It does matter what you fight for. Feeling rewarded for your efforts. And that is dealing with how meaningful your Ranked Ladder is.

Unfortunately, Live’s ladder is quite underwhelming. I would even prioritize fixing this aspect over Structure. While this theme is usually tied to the Rewards of a Ladder, there is a bit more to it. But first, let’s see what the competition is doing.

Let me say that MD isn’t that better, but they are also a new game, so they will likely improve this too *hears Konami chuckling*. They added Diamond rank and data-mining has shown that there are more ranks to be added, but we have triple the waiting time for those compared to Diamond’s intro. These ranks give you a Frame for your Profile. Most other Cosmetics are tied to their Pass, but it is at least nice that you can adorn yourself with these frames that attest your max Rank achieved. A bit of bling. Besides that, you get Gems as you climb Ranks, which are the main currency of the game (think of Credits). It’s not much, but certainly more than what you get in Live.

So let’s set a different standard. Arena has a much more meaningful Ladder. You get some packs, cosmetics and currency at every Season Reset, but the real cake and what makes participants try harder is the Mythic rank. Once you get into Mythic, you aim to get into the top #1200 to get access to Qualifiers which then give you a chance to get into real tournaments. To gain real money or, at least, a good amount of in game currency. It also gives you some level of clout, as you can promote your deck building prowess on social media displaying your rank. Nothing like reaching Top Ranks with your own brew. Some World participants got their entry through these means, and they didn’t have to travel all around for it.

So yeah, Live instead gives you some lame cosmetics for your Avatar, or Sleeves/Boxes for your decks. Not to mention that Avatars are already creepy, the cosmetics don’t do them any favors. You can also later shop for any of those cosmetics, so it’s nothing special to boot. The only meaningful Ladder Reward is on Arceus League, where you get a Golden Pack, but… You have gone through hundreds of games for it. It’s really not great.

Edit: They brought to my attention that the Season Rewards do scale with your rank, just like in Arena. You get a single pack in Quick and after that you get increasing amounts of all 3 currency types as you rank up and they add V Pokemon at higher ranks. Shoutout to ryuugami47 in the comments. However, as the comments say, this is nowhere indicated and even if you know it, it doesn't *feel* great.

Now don’t get me confused, I don’t think that Ladder should give out something that makes those who win, win more. Usually. Considering that Live lets you craft the cards, even being awarded a Golden Pack in the end feels void. If anyone wants to go the length, they should make their Avatars look sick, or bling your cards. Something needs to change so you feel rewarded for your efforts in Live, and right now, it’s quite meaningless.

And that’s it, Ranked Ladder needs to be reworked to give players a great experience. Anything between MD and Arena state should suffice, but currently, the Daily Rewards and Premium Pass are the main motivators to play Live, and not really Ladder.