How exactly does the ranking work. I just noticed that Frankdeslimste jumped 5 paced to 8th even though he hasn't played in over a month and his last game was a loss. Is it simply a case of everyone around him losing ground?

8 easy steps to exploit the ladder:

1 Play fewer games: the system will rate you higher.
2 Quit the ladder and wait for losses to expire. Rejoin at the most advantageous moment. See Zibik not too long ago to set himself up for a long ladder run.
3 Rejoin before all your losses expire so you play better ranked players: games against lower ranked players create downward pressure on your rating. I advised Niko to do this before his great run. He wouldn't have his top rating if he had started from scratch as planned.
4 If you want a certain rating and competition is unusually fierce, quit the ladder. The more the competition plays, the more they lose. Rejoin once they lose and your rating affords you a relatively higher ranking. See chaos when he gained 1st place.
5 Postpone surrendering. See douchebag and how he got to 2200+.
6 Increase your game count to play better players who recently finished a game.
7 Have great luck: you know fortune favors you when lucky guesses/attacks work or a game you will lose becomes a win. See Gui vs the guy who suddenly disappeared after he had the game won (allowed me to get my highest rating), my latest "win" vs Chris (allowed Chris to get to 1st), and Dunga's "win" vs Oliebol (it should enable Oliebol to get to 2250+).
8 Don't play too many games at once, to avoid boredom or fatigue and to stay sharp like Dick Sharpe.

Also, two ways to be a ladder hero without actually playing the ladder:

1 Win a couple meaningful 1v1 ME tournaments and a bunch of live tournaments where winning is a matter of beating one or two other good players. If that doesn't get you hero status, do a great deal of highly visible authoritative analysis of games to make a name for yourself. Then, you won't even need to join the ladder to prove anything and can simply rest on your laurels. Right, Sze?
2 Dominate the ladder when competition is weak or have a fantasticly lucky run of 15+ games to reach 1st and avoid quit the ladder once you lose 1st place.. Then your greatness may become legendary. This may be a side effect of my plan to never play as Gui again.

How exactly does the ranking work

See http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Ladder_Ranks_and_Ratings

Play fewer games: the system will rate you higher.

This is nonsense. This has been discussed in the past, and I once made a graph that compared the number of games people have played with their rank. Looking at the graph makes it clear there's no correlation (if anything it was slightly inversely correlated). Go look look at the data yourself and you'll come to the same conclusion.

ty fizzer.

So Gui. Whats your deal? You bitter about something?

Less games = less of a chance to lose due to luck. Fewer losses = the system has less data to determine your lower bound and gives you a more favorable upper bound. Less data = more assumptins of ability by system. If it is not true, why isn't HHH always ranked in the top 3? His ability doesn't change. He simply plays more games and his rating is most accurate. Others play less and give the system less data. So their ratings are more generous.

Bitter? No. The forum is dull. Bob Marley told me to stir it up.

Can't say I expected to be referenced in such a thread... quite random there Gui. Especially since I have done shite in the ladder.

Shiting on ladders brings worse luck than seeing a black cat under a ladder. I think Fizzer made a semi-objective chart that proved this under conditions of 16% luck with shiting delay cards.

More on ratings: there is more incentive to play fewer games. When Zibik and Chris had 40+ games they never got close to number 1. They each got to #1 by reducing their games played (by quitting the ladder or playing less games slower). Look at the past #1s. Who was #1 with over 40 games played? Who was #1 with 15-20 games? Troll, Fizzer, Me twice, chaos, bytjie niko chris zibik etc. It's easier to avoid losing in 15 games than it is to avoid bad luck across 40+ games. Play a lot and you'll hit a rough patch of bad luck and the system will rate you more accurately. Play less and avoid bad luck and the system will make more assumptions on what your true ability might be, hence the greater fluctuation in rating: the system is still trying to determine what your rating ought to be.

you could just as easily argue that playing more games dooms players because they burn out

the guys with over 40 games have a harder time keeping their games straight and devoting the necessary attention and focus to each game

the guys with only 20 games can zero in on their matches and really focus with fewer distractions

What happens if i lets say started of with 4 losses, after that had like 15 wins in a row reaching a rating of 2000.
Now I decide to quit the ladder and wait for the 4 losses to expire. Will my rating increase or remain stable once they expire one by one?

What happens if i lets say started of with 4 losses, after that had like 15 wins in a row reaching a rating of 2000.
Now I decide to quit the ladder and wait for the 4 losses to expire. Will my rating increase or remain stable once they expire one by one?

If you're not in the ladder, you don't get a rank.

But let's modify it and say that you didn't leave the ladder. Then the answer is yes, your rank/rating will rise when the losses expire. This happens because your rank is calculated based on the last 3 months of games.

just as easily? do you also have binders full of charts? provide evidence please.

simba: quit the ladder. as soon as the 4 expire rejoin. then you are 15-0 and one step closer to ladder nirvana.

no, i have binders full of women

why do i need charts to argue something i already argued? that makes no sense

so which top player vying for 1st is suffering from burnout for having 40+ completed nonexpired games? answer that and i'll agree with you. if it's all hypothetical then there is no use in brainstorming together.

huruey?
hhh?
lightning mcqueen?
old surehand?
sir f bomb?

all have over 35 active games, most hsve over 50, and are hovering in top ten
focus more on current games and any could reach the top

...did Fizzer just reveal an alt account in Truthless Hero? Or does Truthless Hero not realize that he's not Fizzer?

So Gui. Whats your deal? You bitter about something?

He quit school and moved to a foreign country where he has no friends to be with a girl because she agreed to marry him. Now she's left him.

Oh, did you mean about the ladder? He became the best player that ever played the game of warlight and waited patiently for the accolades to start rolling in. Instead, every time he opens his mouth, he's roundly mocked. People still refer to a god-like Impaller who's not around any more and some guy who's only really good at warlight decided to offer a couple free live classes to the community and now everybody loves that guy and not Gui.

russ, while i would gladly play the alt of any warlight player i wont do it for fizzer. that just crosses the line

i meant that i already made the argument above with my followup statements. no need to provide binders full of women.