Hearthpwn

I know a lot of people with 2 or 3 accounts and those are used for specialty stuff, etc, so a lot of those sitting at lower rankings might not really count. That and a lot of people who mainly play casual or with friends. Doesn't necessarily mean they aren't good players just because they're low in rank, just that they don't spend much time in ranked mode.

15 Million people are Rank 15 or below... That explains why I suck and cant push myself too deep into the next bracket.

Would of been nice to see how many of that 75% is 25 to 21... since you cant go backwards when you hit 20. 

Also would of been good to find out how many players get automatic 20 rankings or less from their progress in previous seasons.  oh how many card backs are awarded for each season. Ie How many normal card backs (so how many got Rank 20 of less each season) and how many legendary card backs are awarded each season (ie is the number dropping or changing since its only awarded the first time you get that rank, not for repeat legendary seasons).

i am the 1%

The stat percentages are very interesting

Well, really not so bad. But could be better:)

Hopefully this cures some of the entitlement issues a lot of players seem to have.  Not everyone 'deserves' to hit legend.

The Cyber World tournament looks like it's going to be good. Does anyone know if the $190k is the grand prize or is it the total amount of the prizes?

The stats Blizzard release are pretty cool, but assuming these are global numbers and that there's around 1,000 legend players from all regions, that would mean they are only taking into account 2 million players. So to answer some of the other posters' questions, Blizzard established some criteria to exclude inactive players.

Kudos to Blizzard for sharing this info.  I wish they'd share more statistics like this (outside of Blizzcon).

Bring it on, Nox!

Group B and G :X

They don't discriminate between normal accounts and clones/bots and whatnot. Plausible number would be in the hundred thousand which is still pretty high all things considered.

Group G :(

The primary reason for this distribution is that after you pass rank 20 for the season and ensure you get the card back, there's no incentive to play ranked apart from simply wanting to reach legend for the novelty alone. A lot of players just play unranked, or focus on arena, rather than get into ranked with more competitive players. Those 75% of players could probably very easily get past rank 15 and beyond but Blizzard hasn't given them any tangable reason to bother with it.

The legendary card back is a tangible reward to push past rank 15.

Only once.  After you earn the legend back in any season, there's less incentive to try and get to legend again.

It's nice to know the statistics, but I don't think one can be too proud as this is a f2p game and there should be millions of inactive players.

The Player Distribution numbers are not fully correct. Rank 1-5 are 1,5% not 2%. (0,5% Legends must be excluded)

That's a good observation. If it's not an error, perhaps Blizzard is implying that Legend players are a subset of Rank 1 players.

I wonder how much of that 75% is completely and/or mostly inactive. that would probably alter the numbers rather significantly.

The good ol' Chinese government, rigging the competition so as few of the really good foreign players advance as possible.

Group G  = Group of Death = Giving the Chinese a Chance