The first Season of this year’s StarCraft II league play has begun! Bonus pools and standings have been reset, and 2015 Season 4 milestones have been awarded. You can take a look at your results for the past Season by visiting the Leagues and Ladders section of your character profile.

Season 1 retains the maps that were available for the 1v1 and 2v2 ladder map pool in the previous Season (see here for more details). If you’re not already familiar with these, you’ll definitely want to learn them before you press the "Find Match" button in the game.

As always, the hidden skill ratings used for matchmaking and league placement carry over from one Season to the next. If you were already placed in a league prior to the current Season lock, you'll only need to play one placement match to kick off the new Season. For additional information on ladder improvements, please see David Kim’s recent forum post here. 

Ladder rank will also be used to determine the 2016 WCS Challenger qualifier slots for the WCS Circuit Winter Championship for the North America and Europe regions. If perform exceptionally well on the ladder in these regions, you may earn yourself one of these coveted slots. See this article for more info.

Finally, we’re aware of some issues involving matchmaking after using the “Leave League” button. We have made some improvements to prevent this, and we expect further improvements soon.

Good luck, commanders — and have fun!