Seems that Blizzard weren’t done with dealing with cheaters in Hearthstone when they banned a large number of accounts suspected of using auto-play bots earlier this week. Now they’re aiming to tackle another form of cheating or rather an exploit of the system: Win Trading.

To explain, win trading is when players have agreements to purposely forfeit matches to artificially push up player ranks in the ranked play ladder. This is done most often at the higher ranks when there are fewer players in that rank bracket and therefore the chances of facing the same opponent are higher. In other words, it’s an exploit of the system and Blizzard aren’t going to stand for it.

“Fair play is at the heart of Hearthstone,” Blizzard community manager Wirthun writes. “The Ranked Play ladder is a place where players have the opportunity to duel and gauge their card-slinging prowess while climbing the ranks. Participating in Ranked Play should be fun, exciting, competitive, and fair.”

The exploit had already been brought to light some ten months ago in a Reddit thread by high ranked player Specialist, and another player zRusher also has admitted to using win trading to climb to legendary status. They claim to have been exploit testing though and say that they were left with a bad taste in their mouth after using the method.

Blizzard are now handing down permanent bans and disqualification from tournaments for all players caught engaging in this behaviour. Specialist has already confirmed his account has been banned.

Reddit thread “Major flaw in the Ladder system”: [x]