Matchmaking and Elo — Wiki

Your level and Elo, how your Elo moves, placements, how you're matched, the map veto, the server region, and your stats.

Your level and your Elo

You have two numbers, and the site shows both: your level, 1 to 10, with its icon, and your Elo next to it, on your profile, on the rankings, in your party and in match rooms. Every match moves your Elo, and your Elo sets your level:

• You start at 750 Elo, in Level 1.

• Your level shows after your 10 placement matches (below). Until then the site shows your Elo and how many placements you've played, "Placement 6/10", instead of a level.

• Level 10's best show their place: at Level 10, the top 500 on the rankings get an insignia for their place instead of the Level 10 icon: Top 1, Top 10, Top 25, Top 50, Top 100, Top 250 and Top 500.

• The bands are the site's: staff can move them, and this table always shows the ones in use.

How your Elo moves

• After a match, your Elo moves by the same amount as your whole team's. Only two things decide it: whether you won, and how strong the two teams were. A team's strength is its players' average Elo (a bot counts as 750). The score, your kills and being MVP don't change it.

• Beating a stronger team gains more, and losing to a weaker one costs more:

• A match moves you 20 Elo at most (it's Elo with K = 20).

• Your first 10 rated matches are placements (a match you won or lost; one that's drawn, called off or voided doesn't count toward them). They move your Elo three times as much, both ways, so up to 60. Your level shows after the 10th, and from then you're on the rankings.

• Elo never goes below 0.

• A draw or a match that's called off doesn't change anyone's Elo.

• If staff void a match, every rating is worked out again without it. Staff can also correct a player's Elo by hand.

• For now, test matches count too: matches on our servers before ranked starts move Elo like ranked ones.

• New seasons don't reset your Elo.

Your place on the rankings is one more than the number of placed players above you, and players on the same Elo share a place.

Finding a match

• Queue alone or with a party of up to 5. The party leader starts the search, once everyone is ready and online.

• There's one queue for EU and NA. The matchmaker starts from the player who's waited longest. Around them, it picks, from the longest waiting, the ten players that make the closest teams by average Elo, then the ones who've waited longest.

• Parties always play together, on the same team.

• There's no Elo limit on who you meet: the teams are balanced instead.

• A search ends after 30 minutes, or when someone in the party leaves it, turns their ready off, goes offline for 60 seconds or signs out. Nothing is lost when it does.

The ready check

• All ten have 20 seconds to accept. If anyone declines or the time runs out, the match is cancelled.

• Everyone who accepted goes back into the queue with their place kept, unless someone else in their party didn't accept: then their party's search ends.

Captains and the map veto

• Each team gets a captain, drawn at random. The teams are named after them: Team_<captain>.

• The captains ban maps from the map pool until one is left: the first team bans one, the second team two, then they take turns. With all eight maps in the pool, that's seven bans.

• 15 seconds a ban. If the time runs out, a random map is banned for that team.

• The first team is the team of the player who's waited longest.

• Sides are decided in game, by the knife round (How a match works).

The server region

• You set your server preference on your account: EU, NA or both.

• The region is picked after the veto:

  • if only one region has servers, it's that one;

  • if 6 or more of the ten prefer only one region, it's that one;

  • otherwise there's a 15-second vote: the majority wins, and a tie picks one at random.

Leaving

• Once the ready check passes, you can't leave the match room. Leaving your party keeps you in it.

• A match you leave after it has started still counts for you: you get your team's Elo change.

Your stats

• The knife round doesn't count.

• Team kills and falls aren't kills, but every death counts.

• Your totals add everything up first, then divide. They're never an average of each match's ratio.

• What everyone does, all together: weapons, kill distances, sides and the first kill are on Ranked stats.

Reporting a player

• After a match, you can report any other player from it, once, for:

  • aim hacking, wall hacking or other hacking;

  • a map exploit;

  • abusive voice or text chat;

  • griefing;

  • poor teamplay;

  • macros.

• A report never punishes anyone by itself: staff review it.