I was playing Hearthstone last night when around 3:00am New York Time I got the message onscreen: “Congratulations (2-star Gold) Medal earned last week.” When I won my next game, I was greeted with a Copper Medal. This didn’t bode well, and I double checked the Ranked Mode UI. Indeed, I had been ranked with a Copper medal. The server reset the Ranked Mode Medal.
At first I thought this was a bug and reported it so. After discussing the matter with Narull (Australia/New Zealand Diablo III MVP) it was obvious that the Congratulations message stating “earned last week” means the reset was intended. Blizzard Entertainment is planning as of the current Hearthstone beta build 3890 to reset the Ranked Mode Medal on a weekly basis.
Of course, this is beta. Things can change overnight as Blizzard continues to test and iterate beta and listens to fan feedback.
What does it mean for players to reset Ranked Mode Medals on a weekly basis? At the moment that is unknown. Blizzard did not mention this reset in the patch notes nor on the official forums or via Twitter. A response will likely be revealed in the next few hours. Stay tuned for an update to this post.
The first thing to come to mind is that Blizzard might be planning some juicy Hearthstone rewards if the reset is weekly. Those medals have a very short lifespan and resetting weekly might burn out players’ interest unless the rewards are so awesome they keep coming week after week to reach the highest possible medal.
Rewards might be different rarity of cards, extra Arcane Dust to create new cards, or something beyond my imagination. Arena Mode works this same way, but requires 150 gold to enter.
Update
There was a blue response from Community Manager Aratil at the official Hearthstone forums
The ranked ladder was reset yesterday. This was done in order to help us to test the ladder reset functionality as we continue to work on and develop how ladder systems will be implemented for Hearthstone. We appreciate your continued testing efforts through the Hearthstone closed beta to make this game the best it can possibly be for everyone on release!
