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Apologies for the delayed response, I wasn't notified that you had responded for some reason. As I've established in the post you responded to, you took it upon yourself to directly disagree with my argument that legend was harder to achieve within the old system than the new. I literally quoted you doing so. So as far as I'm concerned this is pretty cut and dried. There is no "cheating" on my end, just you attempting to act as if an argument in which you could not come up with valid counter-points/rebuttals to any of my points, did not happen. I won't deny that my argument may not have had everything to do with your original comment, but the conversation we were having did develop to the point that we ended up talking about something that wasn't completely aligned with your original comment. That's how conversations work sometimes; sometimes topics change. So yeah, that's all to say I don't blame you for wanting to be done with this conversation, given how unfavorably it has developed for you.
But it is relevant, because it represents a separation/difference between the old system and the new. I'm not sure where the disconnect is here, but what I've saying for the last several comments is that the skill floor for attaining legend in the old system is higher relative to the skill floor for attaining it in the new system. I never said that it was impossible back in the day or that there was a limit on the number of games you could play to get there. So it absolutely matters how long it takes, if how long it takes is directly correlated to how consistent (read: skilled) a player has to be to get to legend. Greater consistency was required in the old system to reach legend, as is demonstrated by my statistic, so it follows that greater skill was required. This is the crux of everything I've been saying and you don't seem to understand or be capable of addressing that, lol. So once again, you have not addressed my argument. As for whether reaching legend in and of itself is a good indicator of skill, that is an entirely different conversation to the one we have been having. I have clearly been making the case that more skill was required to get to legend in the old system than is now required in the new system, not that legend is "a good indicator of skill". You directly argued against this viewpoint when you wrote "But the skill needed hasn't changed", and you have been actively arguing against it in your last several posts. So it's more than a bit disingenuous to now claim that you were never really opposed to the premise that legend was harder in the old system and that you were just saying that "legend is not a good indicator of skill" the entire time.
Ok, can you provide some sort of reasoning as to why you think I haven't established that? I cited a very simple statistic (26 games from rank 5 to get legend in the old system as opposed to 16 games from Diamond 5 in the new system) that gives my argument a factual basis. So far as I can tell, your counter-argument to this point hasn't even addressed that at all. You seem stuck on the idea that time is the only criterion for success on ladder and the climb to legend and that skill is relatively inconsequential, but you can't seem to support that rationale with anything other than conjecture. If you can't support your opinion with anything other than your opinion or even directly address my argument, I think it's safe to say that it's hard to attribute credibility to your objections to my points.
Sorry, but I don't see how my conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises I established. It's quite simple: you needed to win more games with an above 50 percent winrate in the old system to attain legend than you do now. As such, greater consistency (and consequently skill) was required to attain legend. As I've said before, it's not that it took more time, it's why it took more time. You are correct in that, if it were simply a matter of time and there were no other factors that impacted the climb in the old system relative to the new (i.e. consistency and the number of games for which consistency is necessary), then one could safely assert that the skill required to make said climb has not changed. However, as I've established several times now, that is not the case.
This lines up with everything I've seen and what I've been told about wild legend in NA. I'd be interested to hear whether you get 11 stars if you happen to end the month around 400
I think the lowest I've seen for NA was around 21,000, although I'm sure it's possible there have been lower and someone on the forum has seen it. Thanks for sharing which ranks you got 11x with, that's very interesting. I don't play standard much anymore, but I do have friends that get decently high legend in standard fairly consistently and they haven't gotten the 11x bonus even as high as 500 as I mentioned. Were those times you got it recent, or right around the time a particular expansion dropped? That would help to explain why you got it relatively low, unless there are just way more standard legend players in EU than there are in NA every month.
That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying. Fascinating that you've finished as low as 2200 and still received the 11 star bonus. The only explanation I can come up with is that a particularly large number of people made legend in EU that month. I understand that more people play in EU than NA and that consequently more people are in legend, but I don't believe there is such a large discrepancy that NA has less than 1/4th of the players in legend that EU does (which would account for you receiving the 11 star bonus at 2200 when a friend of mine in NA does not receive it at 500). With that said, based on what you're telling me I think it's safe to say that the margins for receiving the 11x are a bit inflated in EU relative to NA. Out of curiosity, where do you typically finish in standard while still getting the bonus?
Not sure where you're getting this top 10-15 % figure for the 11 star bonus, but that is completely wrong so far as I know. It's not even close to being the top 10-15%. The 11 star bonus is officially relegated to "high legend" players and I know players that consistently finish in the top 500-1k for standard NA legend that do not receive it, as well as players that have finished below 400 in wild NA legend and not received it. Bear in mind that the top 1,000 players in legend in either format represent less than 1 percent of the player base actively participating in said formats, at least if the statistics we've been provided by Blizz in the past are anything to go by. There is no way in hell that 10-15 % of all players in either standard or wild are top 1k legend. Now I have heard of people with extremely high MMR retaining an 11 star bonus after consistently ending the month very high in legend (top 10-top 100) and then taking it easy for a few months, but they still had to achieve very high legend to get it in the first place. If you have some sort of evidence of players receiving the 11 star bonus despite having never achieved high legend, as well as a reputable source for this random 10-15 % figure, I would be very interested to see those. Otherwise all of the information we've been provided to date by Blizzard suggests that the 11 star bonus is strictly for players that end the month in "high legend" (at least sub 500 in NA in either bracket from what I've been told), which is a sub one percent fraction of players on ladder in each respective region.
Opinions vary on where exactly the 11 star bonus begins. I've heard top 400-200. Generally I think 400 is a safe bet. So yeah, most players are not able to take advantage of it. As far as how hard it is to achieve, I think that really depends on a variety of factors. How much time do you have, what decks are you playing, how good are you at the game, how lucky have you gotten with matchups, draws, RNG, how well can you resist tilt, etc. It definitely will take time and effort to achieve high legend. With that said, I'm still of the opinion that even with the 10 and 9 star bonuses, legend can be easier than it was back in the day. Primarily bc those get you up to or close to D5 and from that point the grind to legend is not as bad as it used to be. I definitely would not characterize it as "easy" if you don't have the 11 star bonus, but it's easier than it was in the old system. But I hear where you're coming from. If you took a break or you're new to the game or if you're just having a hard time breaking into the higher ranks, building up a high star bonus can be very grindy.
Apologies if I wasn't very clear in my response. I wasn't saying that there weren't win streaks in the old system, I was saying there weren't massive win streaks like there are now (i.e. 22 stars for winning a single match), and unequivocally there were no win streaks or star bonuses past rank 5. If I recall correctly you would only get 1 bonus star if you won 3 plus matches in a row for each win, so you could only progress by 2 stars a win, and never past rank 5. That's 26 games where you need a greater than 50 percent WR to progress, as opposed to 16 past Diamond 5 now, and you can carry a star bonus past Diamond 5. And in the old old system everyone got reset to rank 15 every month regardless of where they placed the season prior. I think it's also worth noting that ranked floors are far easier to come by in the new system: 10 in total as opposed to 5 in the old system. All of which is to say, the new system is easier to progress through (provided you have a decent star bonus of course) and more forgiving towards losses and inconsistency. As such, it is reasonable to make the case that, notwithstanding the enormous changes in HS's meta and how the game is played since the new system was put it place (which is another conversation in itself), greater skill was required to attain legend in the old system than is now required in the new.
Ok, so I do disagree that the skill required hasn't changed. I stated my reasoning as to why that would be the case in my initial reply to you (greater consistency required in the old system since there were no massive star bonuses or win streaks). If you have some sort of counterargument entailing why that would not be the case I'd be interested to hear it. With that said, I think it's pretty hard to appraise the value of a relatively esoteric concept like determination against more quantifiable things like time and skill. All are important to hit legend, I have a hard time accepting the premise that determination, abstract as it is, is exponentially more pertinent to the achievement than time or skill. I don't see much use in deliberating over that though, that's pretty philosophical and virtually impossible to definitively establish one way or the other. We can agree that determination is important, as are time and skill. I would be interested to hear specifically why you think, in terms of skill, the climb to legend now is exactly the same as it was in the old days.
If that was that you meant, then yes, I tend to agree that actually wanting to hit legend is generally necessary to hit legend. You could say that about pretty much any pursuit in any area of life but sure, it holds here. And I agree that generally getting there doesn't happen on accident. I still think it's important to note, however, that determination is not the sole prerequisite for getting there. You can't just get legend because you want to get legend: you have to reach a certain level of proficiency with your deck and with the game overall, and not everyone can necessarily do that. Some people just aren't that good at card games, and of course many more don't have the time or don't want to spend the time necessary to achieve legend. I'm sure you know this as well, I just wanted to clarify bc it sort of sounds like you're saying all you need to hit legend is determination.
This is an interesting premise and it raises an interesting question. That is, to what extent is and has been success in the climb to legend been attributable to skill as opposed to time? I think the answer to this question is dependent on just how much time it takes the climber in question to reach legend: if they do it in a relatively short duration of time as opposed to a long duration, then it is quite logical to propose that ability (or at the very least luck) was more critical to their success than how much time they had. If they need more time, then it is similarly logical to propose the opposite. This was just as much the case in the old system as it is the case now.
So I don't know that it's safe to say that skill was not as important as time in the old system, although this is definitely subjective. Time is certainly less of an issue now with the star bonus. And I think you are perhaps misrepresenting or misunderstanding precisely what made the climb so much more difficult in the old days. It wasn't just that it took more time, it was why it took more time. You had to play and win more games and win those games more consistently to get to legend than you do now (provided you have a good star bonus, of course). As such, skill was far more impactful in the old system with regard to who reached legend and how quickly it was reached than it is now. So I would hardly characterize legend in the old system as trivial, given how the grindy nature of it was actually favorable to more skilled players attaining high rank due to the greater consistency that was required.
Easy is relative, but I don't know that you necessarily have to devote a lot of time to hit it with relative ease. Initially sure, you have to learn how to play and get good with whatever archetype you've chosen to focus on, but once you are good enough and dedicate enough time to hit high legend and you do things become significantly easier. This is primarily bc of the 11 star bonus, which just makes the grind so much less difficult after you hit Diamond 5. So far as I understand it this is not affected by how many games you play each month, or at least this hasn't been the case for me. If you play a relatively small number of games to high legend with a good WR and barely play for the rest of the month, you're still getting that 11 star bonus so long as you remain in the higher ranks (and sometimes even if you don't if your overall mmr is high enough). With that said I definitely am not attempting to trivialize the process of getting good enough or putting in the time/effort to reach this point. I just don't think that attaining legend is nearly as difficult once you have the 11 star bonus. Granted I'm referring to a pretty small proportion of the player base, but I still think it's worth pointing out that legend can be much easier to hit than it was in the old days.
This thread is a little extra IMO, but I will comment. Legend is easier to achieve than it was in the old ranking system; everyone who has achieved legend in the old ranking system and achieved it in the new one knows this. The question is, is this something that is legitimately worthy of complaint? I know older players, and have been one of these people myself, that have observed with some aggravation how silly/stupid it is that there are now tens of thousands of people getting legend in each region every month in standard. I think a large part of this is bc I actually do remember when there were 2,000 people max in legend at the end of the month, and I do believe that the exponentially inflated number of people in standard legend each month correlates far more to how much easier legend is to achieve now than it does to an increased number of players queuing "competitively". So I understand and generally agree with the argument that legend doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to.
With that said, I've come to the realization that-if we want to reduce frustration and increase our own sense of clarity regarding this topic-all we need to do is move our goalposts and/or shift our perspective. If, for example, you think legend is "too easy", stop attaching so much significance to legend and start attaching it to high legend. And try to appreciate the benefits of the relative ease with which legend is achieved now. If you're good/lucky enough you can get legend without too much fuss within the first few days of the month (particularly if you have the 11 star bonus) and, if simply being in legend is your goal, mess around for the rest of the month and relax. This is now far easier than it used to be, and I think this is quite positive in many ways. So I think there are definitely positive aspects of how much easier the grind is now, even it is a bit disappointing how many people now achieve a rank that was once reserved for real grinders/genuinely elite players.