Hello Blizzard,
As a dedicated player of the Battleground Blitz ladder in World of Warcraft, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the persistent issue of wintrading that is negatively affecting the competitive experience for many players. There is a small group of players—specifically PlayerOne, PlayerTwo, and their buyer PlayerThree—who are exploiting the system to climb the ladder unfairly.
Here’s how they are wintrading:
- Unequipping gear to die easily – These players intentionally unequip their gear, allowing them to die quickly to the enemy team and effectively throw the match in their favor.
- Sharing enemy strategies – They coordinate across teams and share enemy positions and strategies, giving them an unfair advantage.
- Ghosting – They inform their teammates when an enemy rogue is leaving a base while in stealth, which is a clear case of unfair information sharing.
- Griefing with CC breaks – They actively break crowd control (CC) effects just to grief the other team and make the game frustrating for others.
- Abusing Shadow Rift (PvP talent) – As Warlocks, they use Shadow Rift to teleport enemies closer to nodes or up on ledges they were knocked off, further disrupting the match.
These three players are part of a larger community of wintraders. The implementation of the anti-class-stacking system has created an environment where this kind of behavior is possible. When players duo with healers and DPS of the same class, they are placed on opposite teams, making it easier to exploit the system and wintrade.
How it works:
- Healer + DPS wins: Both players gain significant MMR boosts, and they can swap between duos in subsequent games to continue climbing.
- DPS wins against Healer + DPS: The DPS wins and gains an MMR boost, allowing the healer to continue getting high MMR lobbies by duoing with the high MMR DPS in later games.
At higher MMR, this problem becomes almost impossible to avoid, as the lobbies get smaller and these players will frequently face each other. At lower MMR, you can dodge wintrade sessions, but this becomes much harder as you climb.
Proposed Solutions:
- Remove duo queueing: This would eliminate the core exploit that allows wintrading to thrive.
- Punish wintrading: These players have been exploiting the system for over 15 years with no real consequences. It’s time to hold them accountable and enforce penalties for wintrading.
I believe that addressing these issues is crucial to restoring fairness and integrity to the Battleground Blitz ladder. I hope Blizzard will take action to fix this problem and ensure that competitive gameplay remains fair for all players.
Thank you for your time and consideration.