It’s a busy weekend in the world of electronic sports and it’s not just League of Legends that aims to have fans excited. There’s plenty of action from the CS:GO at StarLadder to the Rocket League: Championship Series. We even have the Hearthstone: Trinity Series finals to look forward to. All the details on this weekend’s events can be found below.

League of Legends: 2017 EU LCS Spring Split

Week seven of the EU LCS was crucial for the bottom-placed teams and Origen was desperate to pick up their first victory of the season. However, Roccat managed to win key team fights and after a messy back-and-forth game the series went to them. Technical difficulties came up during the Team Vitality vs Giants series and game two had to be replayed due to an Orianna bug. This break unhinged the Giants and Vitality took the victory despite losing a game. Meanwhile, the top teams also had to play each other this week, and H2k remained on top form in their game against Misfits, and Unicorns of Love managed to dominate Fnatic after a game-changing team fight in game two. G2 Esports are still the team to beat and we’ll see if anyone has what it takes to topple them as we enter week eight of play. This week’s schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

League of Legends: 2017 NA LCS Spring Split

Phoenix1 had another great week and they decimated FlyQuest in both games, and now they’re only two wins away from rivalling Cloud9 for second place. Echo Fox’s series against Team Dignitas was very close, but in the final game jungler Chaser and mid-laner Keane managed to take complete control of the map and applied pressure until Echo Fox crumbled. Team Liquid made changes to their roster once again, but despite adding Doublelift to their line-up they couldn’t quite takedown Cloud9. However, they did manage to win an extremely close game against Envy after a securing Baron. Meanwhile, TSM had a very shaky week which saw them drop two games against both Envy and Immortals, but they did eventually pull through and win both matches. The competition continues to heat up as we enter week eight of play and all teams will be looking to climb the competitive ladder. The full schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

CS:GO: StarLadder i-League Season 3

The American and European playoffs are taking place this weekend and only the top two teams from each bracket will secure a place in the LAN finals. G2 Esports and Space Soldiers are kicking things off in Europe today at 08:00 PDT / 16:00 CET, while Cloud9 and Renegades clash in America much later at 18:00 PDT / 02:00 CET. With $300,000 up for grabs you can bet that every team will go in guns blazing, and there’s sure to be plenty of high-octane action. The schedule and stream for both playoffs can be found here.

Rocket League: Championship Series

The 16 teams that will be competing in the Rocket League Championship Series over the next six weeks have been decided. There was a big upset in Europe as PENTA Sports will once again miss out on league play after falling 1-3 to RedEye and losing to Mockit eSports in the loser’s bracket. Another surprise was delivered by ZentoX who fought their way through the lower bracket to claim the last available spot in league play. Meanwhile, in North America Radiance managed to take down both Iris and Atelier for the first spot, but the biggest surprise came when Iris was knocked out by Selfless. Make sure you check out RLCS official Twitter handle to receive the latest schedule times and streams.

Hearthstone: Trinity Series

The top four teams from the online portion of the Trinity Series will be participating in the live finals this Saturday. There’s a $150,000 prize pool up for grabs, and the tournament will be hosted at ESL Studios in Burbank, California. So far Team Liquid is the favourite team to secure a place at the final, but the competition is looking extremely close and every player will need to be at the top of their game if they want to take home the title. The upper bracket finals and lower bracket semifinal starts today at 10:00 PDT / 18:00 CET, while the lower bracket finals and grand finals start the same time tomorrow. The official stream can be found over on Twitch.

Heroes of the Storm: Eastern Clash

The top Heroes of the Storm teams from China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan will clash in order to crown the best team in Asia. Matches will be played in a double-elimination format and there’s expected to be rivalries between China and Korea, especially between organisations like MVP Black and eStar Gaming. With $100,000 on the line and a chance to claim bragging rights over Asia the Eastern Clash is expected to deliver an action-packed weekend. The full schedule and stream can be found over on heroesofthestorm.com.

Valve has just announced a brand new addition to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's map line-up. Dubbed 'Canals', the map is based on an "historic Italian city" and is based on "real-world environments". The map's existence first came to light last year when players found references to "canals" in the game files. Now, it's finally here.

"The CT side is composed of a large, wide open area while the T-controlled territory forms a crescent of smaller spaces around it and provides multiple approaches to each bomb site."

The description continues: "While the map is based on a real-world location, the aesthetics are intentionally clean and uncluttered for good player visibility. In addition, many of the environmental models are built in a modular fashion so they can be easily re-used by community map makers." For a full detailed rundown on some of the design decisions, click on over here.

A few more pics:

The update will also usher in a visual upgrade to the Phoenix Terrorist player model, with the aim of "preserving character legibility and improving overall visual fidelity". Finally, there's also a new Spectrum Case containing 17 new weapon finishes designed by the community.

The Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, Poland opens its doors this weekend and there’s plenty of esports action to indulge in. There’s drama from the Heroes of the Storm: Western Clash to the CS:GO World Championship. We even have week three of the Smite SPL to look forward to. All the details on this weekend’s events can be found below.

Heroes of the Storm: IEM Western Clash

Three of the highest-ranked teams from HGC North America, Europe, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand will duke it out for their share of the $100,000 prize pool. Teams will clash in a double-elimination format and we will see if anyone has what it takes to dethrone Misfits this weekend. In addition to all the competitive gameplay, a new hero will also be displayed during today’s event. You can check out the standings for each region and view the tournament schedule for your area over on the Heroes of the Storm’s official site.  Starcraft 2: IEM Season XI World Championship

The World Championship is set to be the final StarCraft 2 event of IEM Season XI, as well as the first global event of WCS 2017. A chance to grab a place in the global finals at BlizzCon this year will be given to the winner, as well as $250,000 prize pool. The competition is looking extremely fierce, with 76 challengers facing off to claim the crown. Group C will kick things off today at 03:00 PST / 12:00 CET and continue throughout the day. You can check out the full schedule here, while the stream can be watched over on Twitch.

CS:GO: IEM Season XI World Championship

The group stage matches of group A and B have concluded and FaZe Clan has won their place in the semi-finals, while Natus Vincere took the lead in their bracket. Teams that secured second and third place will duke it out in the quarterfinals, but only the strongest will have a chance to snag the $250,000 prize pool. The quarterfinals start today at 03:45 PST / 12:45 CET, while the semifinals begin the following day at 03:30 PST / 12:30 CET. You can check out the full schedule here, while the stream can be watched over on Twitch.

League of Legends: 2017 EU LCS Spring Split

G2 Esports remain strong after they took both games against Unicorns of Love in week five. They starved UoL of objectives and gold in the first game, while the second game was won thanks to a game-changing quadra kill from Zven. Splyce has improved tremendously and Kobbe’s Jhin was the star of the show going 8/1/9 against Fnatic. The competition is heating up as we enter week six of play and Misfits are still looking to rival G2 for first place. This week’s schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

League of Legends: 2017 NA LCS Spring Split

Team SoloMid dominated Cloud9 in week five and their early game has greatly improved since the start of the LCS. Bjergsen’s Zed and Hauntzer’s Shen showed excellent control and synergy in game three, which gave TSM an early advantage that allowed them to push for the win. FlyQuest suffered an unexpected defeat against Dignitas when Hai decided to pick Jarvan mid, which made it all too easy for Dignitas to play around. Team Liquid also suffered a heavy defeat in their game against Counter Logic gaming, but they still have a chance to show improvements when they face Immortals today. The full schedule and stream can be found over on LoL Esports.

Overwatch: APEX Season 2

We’re more than halfway through the Overwatch APEX Season 2 now and it has been a rough ride for the Western squads. However, Team EnVyUs still have a shot to claim a win for fans when they face Lunatic-Hai today at 02:00 PST / 11:00 CET, while Team KongDoo Uncia face RunAway at 03:30 PST / 12:30 CET. The competition continues to ramp up and the $178,000 prize pool is beckoning for a victor. You can find the official stream over on Twitch.

Smite: SPL 2017

The third week of the SPL will continue this Saturday where CycloneGG and NRG eSports will clash. Team Eager are the current leaders in North America, while Valance Squad are the dominant team in Europe. NRG will be looking to secure a win after Obey Alliance delivered a shocking blow when they beat them 2-0 and took second place. CycloneGG is currently at the bottom of the rankings alongside Sanguine Esports, so expect to see the underdogs going all out in this matchup. You can find the weekend’s schedule and official stream here. 

CS:GO players take a lot of pride in their ranks. Ranks represent countless hours spent learning the game and applying your skills alongside teammates. But for how much players tend to fret over their arbitrary skill group, there's not much info out there about how the ranks work. Generally, playing better will eventually rank you up, but Valve remains tight-lipped about the inner workings.

To help you understand this system better, we've collected the best-available information from Valve and a variety of other sources.

How CS:GO ranks work

• To earn your initial rank, you'll have to win 10 placement matches, at a limit of two per day. These allow time for the game’s ranking system to determine your caliber. Note that an unranked player will be unable to queue with anyone of rank Master Guardian 2 or higher, unless queuing with a full team of five.
• Once you've earned those 10 wins you’ll be assigned into one of 18 Skill Groups, depending on your performance. You’ll now be able to play as many matches as you like, but can only queue with players within +/- 5 ranks of your own (once again, excluding a team of 5 queuing).
• Based on successes and failures, your rank will be adjusted at the end of each match, assigning you a higher or lower Skill Group if necessary. The mechanics behind this are still unclear, but the surest way to improve is by winning as a team.
• Play no matches for a month and your Skill Group will disappear, requiring a win or draw to return it. Again, you’ll no longer be able to play with ranks above Master Guardian 1 until you’ve earned it back.

Rank distribution

CSGOStats, an independent analysis website provides a breakdown of the rank distribution, showing the percentage of active players in each rank over a day, week or month. This data is collected through randomly sampled matches, so extending the catchment period to a month gives a good idea of how the ranks spread out.

In the sample above we can that the average rank is Gold Nova 3, with around 35% of all players sampled in the Gold Nova bracket. If you’ve earned your way to Legendary Eagle, congrats, you’re in the top 5% of matchmaking players. In fact, you might be even higher than you think. The site’s random sampling technique means that because higher ranked players will, in general, play the game more often, they are disproportionately likely to be sampled. But what does each rank actually mean, and how does the game determine where to place you?

Elo and Glicko-2

Unsurprisingly, Valve has kept incredibly tight-lipped when it comes to the inner workings of its games, for fear that some players might game the system itself, prioritising their own progression over the success of their team. But back in 2015, a Valve employee let slip that CS:GO initially based its matchmaking on the Glicko-2 ranking system, though it has since been adapted and improved, involving some heavy modifications. 

Chances are you’ve heard of Elo ranking. Designed for player vs player competitions such as chess, each combatant is assigned a number to represent their rank. The difference between two competitor’s numbers indicates the expected outcome of the match, with the victor claiming points from the loser. Should the player of higher rank win, he’ll take significantly fewer points than the lower player would, outcome reversed.

Since the adoption of Elo, many variations have been designed to combat some of the system’s flaws. Glicko-2 is one such alternative, assigning a Ratings Deviation (RD) around a base number. A player’s Match Making Rank (MMR) then becomes a range (e.g. [1000-2000]), rather than a single number (e.g. 1500). This improves accuracy; the system can then say it knows a player’s rank will lie within this bracket to a 95% certainty. The better the system knows your real rank, the smaller this range will be. Glicko-2 also takes into account a player’s 'volatility,' how much a rank is expected to fluctuate over time (increased through erratic performances, decreased through consistency).

However, despite Glicko-2 being an open system, clear limitations stop it from applying directly to CS:GO. Both Elo and Glicko were designed with 1v1 competition in mind. In a 5v5, team-based game, far more factors come into play. An individual player’s impact on a game is a difficult thing to judge. Sure, one player can earn four kills in a round, but that may only be because of an ally securing the bomb-plant, or placing a well-timed flash. From K/D ratios to MVPs, performance statistics are varied, and Valve has said nothing about how they’re taken into account with regards to rank. In response to this silence, some players have their own theories on how CS:GO’s ranking system works.

Player theories

Back in 2014, Steam user RetriButioN posted a lengthy record of his experience ranking up multiple accounts. He's since updated the guide, acknowledging that all claims are based purely off his own anecdotal evidence, but it makes for an interesting read regardless. He proposes that ranking is determined on a round-by-round basis, adjusting all players involved to redetermine the expected winner. This method could explain why players sometimes rank up on a lost game, given a close scoreline. The chances of this occurring are extremely low, but multiple players have reported unexpected changes in rank—see Infamous_Blue’s comment here as an example. However, these cannot act as hard evidence for a round-by-round system, as external factors (e.g. previous games being removed due to a detected cheater) can also influence your ranking during a match. These outside events are more likely to explain especially bizarre claims like deranking after a 16-0 win.

RetriButioN also goes on to claim that, aside from winning and losing the round, MVPs are the only factor to affect your ranking score. The logic behind this and the guide came from the use of console command, 'developer 1,' which revealed a ranking number that changed based on rounds and MVPs. However, Valve has dispelled this claim, confirming that files stored on the user-end no longer affect ranking. However, if MVPs previously played a role, there’s chance that they still do. Recently, reddit user dob_bobbs shared his own thoughts, covering the workings of the Glicko-2 system and suggesting that a high volatility may limit the loss or gain of points. The logic behind this is that a player may have an unusual bad patch or lucky streak, not indicative of their true skill, meaning that time to establish the trend is needed.

What we know for certain

With many fan theories floating around, it can be easy to get lost down a rabbithole of guesswork, but there are some key takeaways from what’s been learned. 

A wide number of factors affect your ranking, and it’s all stored by Valve.“All computations are performed on our matchmaking backend and multiple matchmaking parameters describing scientific set of rating variables of a player are represented to players as [their rank],” posted vitaliy_valve in response to RetriButioN’s guide. No matter how much data mining someone claims to have done, they cannot know the details of the matchmaking system. With a number of variables in effect, it’s better to focus on winning the game than arguing over factors like who gets to defuse the bomb, even if someone tells you otherwise.

The more games you’ve played, the harder it will be to change your rank.The nature of Glicko-2’s Rating Deviation means that the longer you play at a particular level, the more precisely the game will believe it has determined your appropriate rank. With a smaller RD, larger jumps in your MMR become improbable. If you’ve ever seen a popular streamer or Youtuber attempt to rank an account from Silver 1 to Global, you’ll notice that it usually takes a long time to progress during the Silver stages. This happens because the account has been intentionally deranked by a player losing repeated games on purpose. During this time, the rating system will believe it has obtained a good idea of the player’s true rank, and therefore responds slowly to subsequent victories. This isn’t to say you’ll never be able to climb the levels again. Given consistent hard work and competition with those above your level, your RD will widen again, allowing greater steps up.

A hiatus will reduce your rank’s certainty, but often leads to degradation.Quit playing CS:GO for a month, and you’ll find your skill group has vanished, requiring a draw or win to earn it back. If you stop playing for longer, there’s a good chance you’ll return at a different rank than before. It has often been suggested that MMR decays over time when inactive, but again it’s tough to find evidence to back this up. The most probable cause for degradation comes from increases in Rating Deviation. 

The longer it has been since your last match, the less certain the game can be of your level, which means you could be matched against players of a wider skill range than you would normally. If you’re in the upper half of the skill groups, you’re more likely to be matched against those lower than you due to the larger pool of players. However, if you find your rank has dropped then it’s best not to worry, as your increased RD should allow faster recovery.