• A new Grandmaster League has been added for 1v1 ladders. This league represents the Top 200 players in each region.
  
  • Players are automatically drafted into the Grandmaster League shortly after a new season starts, and will remain in the Grandmaster League until the end of the season. If a Grandmaster player’s available bonus points get too high due to inactivity, they will be automatically removed from the league and a replacement player will be drafted in.
  • The Grandmaster League can be viewed by all players through the new Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster page.
• The bonus pool has been reduced for arranged teams.
  
• Leagues will now be locked during the final weeks of the season. As a result players will not accumulate additional bonus points and will not be promoted or demoted out of their current division during this period.
  
  • This will allow players to focus on moving up in their current league without being promoted during the final weeks of a season, and having to fight their way up from the bottom ranks of their new higher league.
  • Players can still utilize any bonus points they previously accumulated.
• Ladder data from the prior season can be viewed through the new Leagues & Ladders > Last Season page.
  
• New league icons have been introduced to indicate division rank. These will indicate the Top 8, 25 and 50 players in each division.
  
• Loss counts are no longer displayed in Profile and Ladder pages for players below Master League.

• Several improvements have been made to the Join Custom Game section:
  
  • The Details panel has been removed from this page. Map details are now shown inside a tooltip for each game.
  • Players can now bookmark their favorite custom games! The number of times a game has been bookmarked will be shown in that game's tooltip.
  • Games are now organized into several pages to make finding your desired game type easier:
    
    • Featured: Our team is always on the lookout for new games that are lots of fun. Our latest favorites are shown on this page.
    • Most Popular: Shows all game types, with the most played games sorted to the top.
    • By Category: This page allows you to browse through Custom Games based on Category.
    • Up & Coming: This page highlights games that other players are recommending, but haven't yet become popular.
    • Fun or Not: From this page you can automatically join a random new Custom Game. After the game, players using Fun or Not are asked to recommend the map (or not). Recommending maps helps get them onto the Up & Coming page.
    • Recently Played: The last several games you’ve played are shown here. Use this to quickly get back into games you play often, or to easily bookmark a game you enjoyed playing.
      Bookmarks: Use this page to view your Bookmarked maps.
• A search option has been added to the Join Custom Game interface.

• New panels are now available when observing or viewing a replay of 1v1 games. These panels can be toggled via hotkeys which are shown under the Leader Panel drop-down.
  
  • Player Name Panel: Displays the players' name, team color, race, and supply count.
  • Stat Comparison Panels: Shows a head-to-head comparison of players' resources, army supply, units killed, or APM.
• In 1v1 observed games, both players’ resource rows are shown in the upper right at the same time.
  
• The main game UI can now be hidden/shown via hotkey.
  
• You can now toggle between player unit colors and team unit colors when watching a replay or observing.

• A new Control page is available from the Options menu. You'll find Mouse, Keyboard and Scrolling options within this new page.
• A new menu option is available in the Gameplay page to change the behavior of Control Group Buttons. These can now be set to ignore mouse clicks or be hidden completely.
• The existing menu option under the Gameplay page for Menu Bar Buttons now also supports hiding the Menu Bar.

• Players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol (ex: Viking flower).

• Mothership
  
  • Units leaving the Mothership's Vortex are now un-targetable and immune to damage for 1.5 seconds
  .
• High Templar
  
  • Khaydarin Amulet upgrade (+25 starting energy) has been removed.
• Zealot
  
  • Charging Zealots will now hit fleeing targets at least once.

• Battlecruiser
  
  • Movement speed increased from 1.406 to 1.875.
• Bunker
  
  • Build time increased from 35 to 40 seconds.
• Ghost
  
  • EMP now drains up to 100 energy instead of all available energy. The effect on Protoss shields remains unchanged.
• Tech Lab
  
  • Stimpack upgrade research time increased from 140 to 170 seconds.

• Infestor
  
  • Fungal Growth
  • Stun duration decreased from 8 to 4 seconds.
  • Damage increased by +30% vs. armored units.

Fixed a bug where players were not receiving "Wings Of Liberty: Hard" and "Wings Of Liberty: Brutal" achievements after completing the appropriate number of missions.

Fixed a bug where some Bronze players weren't gaining enough points for wins and were losing too many points for losses.

• StarCraft II will continue running if corrupt textures/models/sounds are encountered.
• Conversation skipping and trigger skipping now share the same hotkey.
• The notification that a player left the game during a paused game is no longer delayed until the game is unpaused.
• Cheat codes now only accept official names.
• Unit response sounds are now updated immediately when the selection changes.
• Unit death will no longer show units on the other side of line of sight blockers that weren’t already visible.
• Units ordered to load into a transport now follow the transport if the transport fills up and they have no other orders.
• Units inside a Bunker no longer disappear if the bunker is destroyed and surrounded by Force Fields.
• Units can now be revived multiple times.
• Hero buttons are now displayed while a hero is dead if they are revivable. Clicking on the button while a hero is dead will either select the building reviving it or cycle between buildings that can.
• Revivable abilities now show revivable units all the time. If they cannot currently be revived, the buttons are shown disabled.
• The revive ability now works with multiple dead units.
• Revived units now properly dispatch a trigger event when killed again.
• Added additional information to unit tooltips in the tech trees.
• An alert has been added when MULEs expire.
• An alert has been added when the Chrono Boost buff expires.
• An alert has been added when the Spawn Larvae buff expires.
• Fixed an issue with not being able to land where you just lifted off if there was a nearby unit.
• Fixed an issue where you could push Hold Position units by Move/Hold Position spamming.
• Fixed an issue to prevent Force Fields from pushing units during construction.
• Fixed an issue with creep destroying more foliage than it should, and made foliage destruction by creep faster.
• Fixed an issue with custom global hotkeys in grid profiles overlapping with unit command buttons.
• Fixed an issue placing Terran add-on buildings when multiple buildings were selected.
• The stalemate timer will now reset when any player gathers resources, researches an upgrade, produces a unit, constructs a building, or destroys an enemy building.
• Additional stalemate warnings are no longer displayed when the game ends in a stalemate.
• Flying cloaked units are no longer revealed as detected when shown through the fog of war.
• Vespene Geysers that are taken by your opponent and are under the fog of war no longer randomly flash on and off on the mini-map.
• Enemy buildings completed while being revealed due to friendly unit death will now properly create snapshots in the fog of war.
• Casting Neural Parasite on a Zerg Cocoon will not cancel the spell until after the cocoon completes its transformation.
• Changes made to autocast abilities while a unit is under the effects of Neural Parasite are now reset to their default state when Neural Parasite ends.
• Queuing multiple targets with 250mm Strike Cannons will no longer result in the Thor being stuck until the cooldown ends.
• Workers gathering minerals can no longer continue to harvest minerals if they are pushed away by a Force Field.
• Orders issued to unload units from a Medivac onto itself can now be canceled if the Medivac is scanning for units to heal.
• The Harvester count in the income leader panel now updates correctly.
• Bi-directional transformations (i.e. those used by Vikings, Siege Tanks, and burrowing units) are no longer shown in the production leader panel.
• The resources from salvaged Bunkers are no longer counted towards the resources lost in the units lost leader panel.
• The Mute OS Microphone button has been removed from the Options' Voice page.
• Tech trees now show icons for units that are produced by a building and display the names for units that are unlocked by a building.
• Using Edit Box Trigger Dialogs should no longer generate trigger errors.
• Media keys can no longer be bound to a custom hotkey.
• Hotkeys configured in a mod are now loaded properly without having to open the Hotkeys page.
• Mouse-based hotkeys are now handled properly when the cursor is over the mini-map.
• Mouse-based hotkeys bound with modifiers are now displayed correctly in the Hotkeys page.
• The hotkey for the Cancel button is now displayed when targeting with an ability if the Command Hotkey Text option is enabled.

• Fixed an issue where editor control files could not be loaded in all languages.
• Fixed an issue with pasting text values in the editor.
• Fixed an issue where certain data fields would not list all possible values.
• Fixed an issue where the editor would crash after pasting a placed unit.
• Fixed a crash using the Unit Weapon Firing validator.
• Player Properties will no longer allow all 16 players to be User/Computer, which is not supported.
• Animations in the previewer will now display using localized text.
• Game and player versions of the cooldown & charge triggers now interpret time values correctly.
• Sounds played simultaneously for multiple players via the Play Sound trigger can now be heard properly.
• Increasing the maximum number of charges with an upgrade no longer increases the current number of charges.
• Setting a unit’s training progress to 100% will no longer cancel the training.

FAQ

Q. How do I enter the Grandmaster League?
A. To enter the Grandmaster League:

There needs to be an open slot within the ladder.
You need to be in the top 200 players according to a rolling average of your skill rating.
You must be eligible.

Q. What does eligible mean?
A. To be eligible, your unused bonus pool must be less than 180.


Q. Can I be removed from the top 200?
A. Yes. If your unused bonus pool exceeds 270, you will be removed from the Grandmaster League.


Q. Is there a way to see who is in the Grandmaster League?
A. Yes. Click on the in-game ladder icon, and then click "Grandmaster" to see the current season rankings.


Q. How active do I need to be to stay in the Grandmaster League?
A. Your unused bonus pool must remain under 270. This means you can't get three weeks behind. This is equivalent to roughly 45 games.