"Your spot in Diamond 1 or Challenger tier means we wanted you to be among the first to know we've updated the design of our ranked play system specifically to address feedback around the end of Season 3 and Challenger.

We take ranked competition seriously, and we know challenger immunity caused issues with transparency around standings at the end of last season. Not knowing whether or not you were about to get kicked out of the tier you'd worked so hard to reach, or earning 0 LP three times in a row sucks.

So we've developed a new ward to challenge your skills, The Master Tier, which brings with it some improvements to the old system. Master Tier will share the same LP ladder as Challenger, but unlike Challenger, there is no hard player limited to Master tier. Once released, players who reach their promotion series at the top of the Diamond 1 will enter Mater Tier if they are successful. And yes, that means that on release there will be no players in Master Tier, but it will begin to fill as soon as players start winning their promos.

When Master Tier Launches, players in Challenger will remain in their current position but the competition kicks off right away as Challenger will now rotate on a twenty-four hour schedule with no immunity.

Each time the clock hits zero, it will recalculate the top 200 players or 50 teams; promoting any players from Master who are now in the top 200 or teams in the top 50 in LP, and removing players who have fallen below the top 200 and demoting them to Master.

We'll be making a wider announcement in the coming weeks ( for example we've also eliminated LP clamping ) along with more about the end of the season, but as one of the players most impacted by this change, we wanted to each out to you directly.

Thanks for playing ranked, and GLHF for the rest of the 2014 season."

"Hey all, to clarify on one point: there is no hard limit to the number of players in master tier like the current challenger 200 spots. This doesn't mean these players will be immune from demotion once they achieve the tier. So master tier could be the top 511 or 534 players in a region based on the amount of participation in ranked, etc. Players who achieve Master tier will have a short immunity period and then be vulnerable to demotion if they don't maintain their performance at that level."

"Demotion will work similarly to other tiers, where there are a few checks before you fall. A player will fall back into diamond 1 if they lose enough games in master tier.
We expect to be on PBE in the next few days."

"Yes, there will be a unique loading screen border for master tier."