To play competitive Dota 2 matches, the game system is calibrating new players to a specific Dota 2 Rank. Also when a new season starts, players have to calibrate again to keep the system up to date!Read here how you can calibrate your Dota 2 account plus tips and tricks for it! 😉
What is MMR Calibration in Dota 2?
MMR Calibration means that Dota 2 will assign a suitable rank to your profile. In the calibration process you complete 10 matches in solo or party mode so that the system can calculate your skill level and give you the correct Dota 2 rank medal for this season.
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1. New Dota 2 Account Calibration:
Players that create a new Dota 2 account cannot play ranked matches, ranked matchmaking has a minumum of 100 normal match-making games.
How to calibrate your new Dota 2 account:
- Play 100 matches first (Normal or Turbo).
- Then the Ranked section will unlock.
- To get your Dota 2 rank, you have to complete some requirements again.
- Complete one of the two options: 10 solo calibration matches or 10 party calibration matches.
- After completing 10 matches inside of one calibration area, you will be assigned to a Dota 2 rank! This rank is not fixed, by playing more games you can rank up and down on the MMR value.
Tip: Each of your normal games counts! Play as good as you can to have the best starting point for your calibration matches. If you are completely new to Dota 2, consider creating a new account after your first training sessions. Read this Dota 2 beginner guide for your help.
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2. Ranked Machtmaking Recalibration:
Dota 2 resets MMR of each player seasonally after every six months, twice a year.
When MMR is reset, players have to calibrate their account again: The process of recalibration is the same as the above process of the new account calibration: You have to complete 10 matches in solo or party mode and your MMR rankings will be calculated based on these placement or calibration matches.
Your previous Dota 2 MMR rank is definitely considered as a baseline, but the system wants to check if you got better or worse than your previous rank. This is a great working system, which allows playing against other Dota 2 players who have the same skill level. 😉
The seasonal Dota 2 rankings do have a useful sense: They sort out the rank medals of foreign times, so if you are worse now and played less you deserve a lower rank, that’s it.
Tip: The best advice is to win as many games out of 10 as you can. To do this, check if your actual performance is as high as you expect it to be.
If you want to keep your rank or even go higher, think about training a few normal matches before you jump into the recalibration. When it’s time to shine, make the best picks, support your team, be communicative, farm well and have the patience to bring the win home – every single time!
Complete Dota 2 Calibration Analysis:
Everything you need to know about Dota 2 Calibration games: What does really matter and how to improve your seasonal calibration rank? Let’s find out!
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What are Dota 2 Calibration Matches?
Dota 2 has multiple matchmaking features, one of them is ranked matchmaking. Ranked matches are entirely dependent on your MMR. Whenever Valve resets the MMR, or a player creates a new Dota 2 account, then a player has to complete ten matches. After that calibration phase, a player can participate in the ranked matchmaking system! The player gets an MMR value which is nowadays displayed as a Dota 2 rank medal in your profile.
Each rank medal had 5 and now 7 stars (0-8 stars) that means, each rank has 8 stages right now. Based on that you can make progress and rank up and down. Calibration matches are a type of “lock”, that have to be unlocked! If you win more calibration matches your MMR and rank medal will be higher!
Find the full Dota 2 mmr ranks table here:
Which Factors are important for Dota 2 MMR Calibration?
When playing Calibration matches, it is like a normal MMR match: You try to win, but in these matches you put even more effort into it, because it means more: The effect of the calibration matches can be extremely high, speaking about your Dota 2 career, so keep the following factors in mind to make the best out of it!
Important Factors for Calibration:
- The Dota 2 Average Hero Performance Graph: This is the most important thing to achieve, always try to be on the right side of the infographic, especially if you are in the second right field this is a 100% positive sign that you have been better than the pseudo MMR of this match and will probably go higher if you reach that in many games.
No matter if you are in the loser or winner team, try to be on the right green side. 😉
On this image I played Ancient Apparition (AA) as you can see the following factors are getting counted for the analysis: Gold per minute (GPM), Experience per minute (XPM), Kills, Deaths and Assists. - Your KDA counts a lot (explained in detail below).
- End game statistics: Hero damage, building damage, healing amount.
- Last hits and denies compared to the average player.
- APM (actions per minute).
- .
- Support Amount (Wards placed, Courier, Support items). Find a complete Dota 2 support hero guide here.
No matter if you are in the loser or winner team, try to be on the right green side. 😉Factors that are not Important:
- The ranks of your friends you are playing with are no direct factor, the system wants to make the teams equal anyway.
- Skins and cosmetic items are beautiful but do not improve your calibration games or rankings in Dota 2.
- Battle Pass levels/Compendium levels do not count, they are just a Dota 2 meta/mini game.
- The Steam Level and also the Dota 2 Level does not help with the Dota 2 rank.
- The total hours spend for Dota 2 does not have an impact.
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Dota 2 KDA Calculation – Impact of the KDA:
KDA in Dota 2 stands for Kill Death Assist Performance inside a single match: You can count your kills and assists together and divide them by your death count.
The Dota 2 KDA Formular is: (Kills + Assists) / Deaths
Example: (10 Kills + 20 Assists)= 30, now divide the 30 by your Deathcount: 30/10 = KDA of 10.
The KDA is quite important for the Dota 2 calibration games, always keep an eye on it, try to die less and keep the death count below the average. Do as many Assists as you can, this will easily improve your KDA. You can pick tanky supports who can easily spread damage and get simple assists without doing much. Of course, just playing good, will help and boost your KDA, it’s a relevant and honest number of your real performance of skill.
How to check your Dota 2 MMR while getting Calibrated?
If you are not yet calibrated with MMR and a Dota 2 rank and still have to play placement matches you can already make an estimation of your supposable final rank:
Dota 2 seperates matches into three parts:
| Game Type | MMR Estimation |
| Normal Skill Bracket | Under 3000 MMR |
| High Skill Bracket | 3001-4000 MMR |
| Very High Skill Bracket | 4001+ MMR |
The game brackets will determine your rank, of course, you can have some matches inside different brackets, this is just an approximately method which has proved to be right quite often. Like this, you have an estimation of the final MMR and if you lose or win a lot of these games you know that you go a bit higher or lower.
What you can also do is, do simply check the ranks of your teammates if you play solo calibration matches: If the average ranks after a few matches, for example, is Legend, you know that you will definitely be ranked at least between the Legend rank and the Ancient rank!
What is the highest possible Calibration MMR in Dota 2?
The highest possible MMR is a high discussed topic, especially if it’s about considering creating a new Dota 2 account to reach a higher MMR rank.
The Highest possible MMR after Calibration is around 4000-4600 MMR, that means the highest possible rank after calibrating are the upper Ancient tiers (Ancient 6 or 7) or Divine 0 or 1. It’s maybe possible to go even higher, but it’s not likely to happen to anyone whose name is not Miracle. 😉
Is it worth creating a new Dota 2 Account for a better Calibration?
Scenario: If I have an account with an Archon rank right now, how much effort would I need to reach Ancient, compared to creating a completely new account?
The downside definitely is that you have to complete 100 Dota 2 games first before you can calibrate and oh boy, 100 games are a ton of games: If you play 3 games per day, you would still need over a month.
But if we assume now someone is agreeing on this tasks as well as the hassle with a new steam account (adding all friends and losing all steam games and levels) then how good would it work?
If the player thinks he has the skill of an Ancient player would it be worth it? To answer this I can say it depends: It can have a positive effect since the frequency of going up and down in the rankings is quite slow. To reach a higher rank in a short time you have to play a lot and still have to perform well. This is a tough task! If you plan to create a new account it could definitely work, but only if you are much better than your rank. If you are closely higher it’s useless to do it.
In addition to that, a fair amount of Dota 2 players think, they are better than they are, but reality shows: The MMR ranks in Dota 2 are quite accurate and in most of the times all of my friends got the rank they are supposed to have! 😉
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What’s the Impact of Calibration Matches on my Dota 2 Career?
After receiving the temporary rank, it is time for you to decide whether you want to increase your medal or decrease it after calibration. There are a total number of 10 calibrations matches in each category. Each win gives +100 MMR to a player, and each loss takes -50 MMR. For example, your temporary Rank is Archon 3 (2500 MMR) after winning all ten games your MMR would be 3500. You will receive Legend 7 title instead of Archon 3-4.
The almost same mechanism applies to the Running accounts as well. When the MMR is reset, the previous MMR of the user acts as the Temporary MMR. For example, the prior MMR of the user is 3000, then the calibration will start from 3000. If you lose all the calibration matches, your new MMR will be 2000 (Crusader 2-3).
Why are Calibration Matches so important in Dota 2?
Calibration ultimately leads to your rank, and your rank decides in which category you will fall during match finding. If you have calibrated in a lower rank such as Herald or Crusader, then all your teammates would be of the same rank. Moreover, you have to suffer in that low bracket with unprofessional and beginner players.
During calibrations many major streamers lost their ranks because of losing all consecutive ten calibration matches. Image those professional 5000+ MMR players (Divine) playing with Herald and Crusaders. 😀
Is it necessary to Calibrate, can I play without it?
Yes, you can play matches in Dota 2 without calibration. However, these matches do not include the ranked matchmaking. Ranked matches are the most popular matchmaking in Dota 2. Players are usually competing with each other, that who has the highest MMR. Complete any of the ten calibration matches and get access to Ranked matchmaking.
How Easy can I Uprank after the Calibration Matches?
Your MMR is set according to your calibration, and it ultimately affects the Rank. For example, if you have calibrated all ten matches, then your MMR will calibrate according to that. Assume an MMR of 3000. On the other hand, you lost half of the solo calibration matches, and your MMR is 2000. Now your rank will increase according to your party MMR because it has the highest MMR.
However, this mechanism has one major problem. What if your friends stop playing or your timing is not matching. Then you are bound to play a solo match. Your rank will not increase until your solo MMR is above 3000, increasing 1000 MMR is a massive pain in Buttocks. Ultimately your Rank will stop, and you have to play with the same average medal players for the rest of the six months.
Advanced Guide How to Rank up in Dota 2:
After the calibration you will always have to deal with your current rank.
To make improvements checkout this detailled guide, which is focussed on moving forward. It’s not an easy task to change your rank, find all the necessary researched information in this article. 🙂
View MMR Rankup Guide
A low starting Calibration can create serious Problems for your Dota 2 Career:
- Lack of motivation because you would not get a new medal.
- If the current rank is low, then you have to face many throwers and noobs.
- You would not learn much. High-Rank players have different gameplay and tactics, then low-Rank players.
- Maybe you will buy/create a new account.
Dota 2 Calibration Tips and Tricks:
- If you are making a new account, in your first 100 standard matches play with your best heroes.
- Practice with bots and then go for the Calibration matches.
- Spam your best heroes during calibration matches.
- Focus on a win instead of kills or having fun.
- Do not make a calibration game long because the enemy will get fat, and your chances of losing will increase, finish games fast and get a good understanding of the power curve: When is your team stronger and when should you push to win this game?
- Select which MMR you want to Calibrate First, solo or party.
- If you are losing too many matches in your selected option, shift to the second one. For example, you selected solo matches and lost 6 out of 9. Do not play the tenth solo game. Start playing party matches.
- Join a cooperative and professional team and play in a party with them. A good party increases the chances of winning by 40%.
- Stop at the ninth match and compare with the solo matches. If you have won more matches in Party then go for the party calibration otherwise you only have one choice left, solo calibration.
- According to professional players, it is better to play support during calibration matches. Good support players lead their team to win.
What can you do if the Dota 2 Calibration gave you a bad Rank?
Some players say MMR is just a number and rank is only a medal. Somehow, it is true, but playing in a low MMR bracket is hard. 😉
In 10 out of 8 matches you have to face throwers, crying babies, noobs, trash talkers, etc. However, after calibration, you can increase your MMR and get out of the lower bracket.
The fun and game experience is higher in the upper MMR brackets, this is clear… aim for higher ranks and make the most out of your Dota 2 career!
Rank up over time:
- If your solo MMR is high then go for the solo matches otherwise party is the only option.
- Spam your notorious and best heroes, if you want to train new things play against bots or normal matches!
- Mute everybody during the match, it will help you to concentrate on the game.
- If you are playing party, then play with your professional/collaborating friends. Do not make a random party.
- Valve always launches a feature name Tokenduring every major tournament. That tournament gives x2 MMR to a player who wins a match. However, Token is a double-edged sword if you lost the match you would lose x2 MMR.
- The number of Tokens is limited, only use them if your picks are outstanding! 😉
- Do not lose hope and keep practicing.
Conclusion
What is your experience with the Dota Calibration system? Does it work out?
What was your first calibration rank for solo and party MMR? 🙂
