Heroes of the Storm's New Ranked Play Seasons Offer Special Rewards

Alongside details on some new characters and skins, Blizzard today detailed big changes coming to Ranked play in Heroes of the Storm. This includes the official start of seasons, which will offer players the chance to earn various rewards.

Seasons will last "a couple of months," though Season 1--starting June 14--may end up being longer than subsequent ones. Over the course of the season, you'll be able to make your way through the ranks in separate Hero League and Team League modes. Each of these modes is divided into seven tiers, and you'll be entitled to rewards like gold, portraits, and mounts depending on what tier you reach.

These goodies are handed out at season's end and can be earned from both Hero and Team League, providing a way to get double rewards. The full list of what you can get is available on Blizzard's website.

Blizzard also announced its intention for players to temporarily have more impact on where they rank.

"With this initial season roll, we'd like to address some community feedback we've received about players feeling 'stuck' in their current ranks," a blog post states. "In an effort to give these players more flexibility and control over their matchmaking rating, we will be temporarily loosening matchmaking certainty during season one placement matches. This means that these games will have a much more significant impact on matchmaking rating, allowing players the opportunity to make quick and meaningful changes in their MMR."

The company went on to explain the new ranked system, which consists of League tiers and divisions. Tiers are larger, more encompassing groups made up of divisions, which divide up players within a given tier.

This setup will place new restrictions on whom you're able to play with in Ranked modes, as you'll need to be within one tier of another player to queue up with them. When you're going through your run of 10 placement matches to be initially placed into a tier, you'll only be able to queue with others also being placed. More details on how this will all work are available here.