Why Promo Helper is a Good Thing

I've seen a lot of people complaining that the new Promo Helper system will "cheapen" the ranked system. However, if we look at the statistics behind both the old system and the new promo helper system we can see that the promo helper system is a much "fairer" alternative.

However, before we can continue this discussion we need to define what a "fair" ranked system is. My baseline assumptions for a fair ranked system are as follows:

1. If you have a "positive" win rate, meaning greater than 50%, you should increase in rank until you face competition that you can only achieve a 50% win rate against.

2. If you have a "negative" win rate, meaning less than 50%, you should drop in rank until you face competition that you can achieve a 50% win rate against.

3. When a player is at a 50% win rate against players in his division he is in the division that he "belongs."

4. If a player is facing promotion or demotion and they have greater than a 50% win rate, they should have a statistical advantage (i.e. greater than 50% chance) in avoiding an adverse outcome (i.e. failing promotion or being demote.)

So let's first look at the demotion system. If you reach 0 LP in a division and you lose your next game you are demoted (unless your MMR is way higher than your current division.) Conversely, if you are at 0 LP and you win the game you aren't demoted. Essentially, you have a 50-50 shot at getting demoted. This means that as long as your average win rate is greater than 50% you are at a statistical advantage not to get demoted. This is exactly what we would expect in a "fair" system.

Now let's look at the old promotion system. If you reach 100 LP in a division you must win 2 out of 3 of your next games (for normal promotions, same logic can be applied to divisional promotions.) Essentially, you have to average a 67% win rate over the course of the promotional series. This means that if your average win rate is less than 67% (even if it is much higher than 50%) you are at a statistical DISADVANTAGE to win your promotion series. Statistically speaking, this is an unfair system since a player with a positive win rate does not have a statistical advantage to avoid an adverse outcome.

What this equates to is players who have a consistent 55%-60% win ratio will climb quickly to 100 LP and then feel like the hit a brick wall in their promotion series. Even if the player has proven that they deserve to climb in rank (via a >50% win ratio), they will frequently have undergo multiple promotion series before they statistically have a reasonable chance at getting promoted.

Essentially what this ranked system does is changes the bar on what "success" is between normal ranked games and games in your promotional series. It would be like getting a B on all your tests in a course and then finding out you need to get an A on the final or you would still fail the class.

The result of this is that it causes a huge lag between player performance and player ranking. This means that it will often take players who have improved (or someone who is smurfing) hundred of games to reach the "correct" ranking when in a "fair" system it would take them much less.

So how does the new promo helper system change this? After a player has proven that they can reach a promotion series (by failing it the first time), the promo helper makes it so you only have to win 1 out of 2 games rather than 2 out of 3. This drops the required win rate over the course of the promotion series from 67% to 50%. What this means that if you have a positive win rate you are at a statistical advantage to pass your promotion series. This is what we saw with the demotion system earlier in this post and matches all the criteria of a "fair" system.

The same can be said for the promo helper system after you get demoted. In this case the promo helper system makes it so you only have to win 1 out of 2 games to get promoted back to your old division rather than having to win 2 out of 3 (after getting back to 100 LP in the lower division.) Yet again this system makes it so that if you have a positive win rate you are at a statistical advantage as opposed to the old system where you would have to have greater than a 67% win rate to have a statistical advantage.

The most important point of the promo helper system is that it only helps you if you have a positive win rate. Therefore, it will not "dilute" Gold ratings like a lot of people will suggest. All the promo system will do is reduce the number of games it takes players with a positive win rate to reach a level where their win rate drops to 50% (i.e. the rating where they belong.) In essence, the promo helper system is a much more efficient system.

In conclusion, the promo helper system will not impact the vast majority of players who hover around a 50% win rate. The promo helper system will only impact the following players:

1. Players who have improved dramatically and have a high win rate, allowing them to rise in rank faster.
2. Smurfs, reducing the number of games it takes for them to get back to their correct ranking.

There are only positives for this system. It rewards players who actually work hard and improve, allowing them to achieve the correct ranking without having to grind tons of games. Furthermore, it minimizes the amount of games where smurfs can wreck lower ranked players before they climb in rank (which benefits lower ranked players) and also allows a high ranked player to rank up their smurfs faster (which benefits the higher ranked player.)