Starcraft 2 news » 2016 Season 1 Lock and Free Character Name Change Coming Soon

The 2016 Ladder Season 1 is coming to an end, and the ladders will soon be locking in order to determine final placements for the season.

Here’s what this means for you:

• During the season lock, you can’t be promoted or demoted from your current league or division, and your bonus pool stops growing.
• Though you’ll be locked to a league and division, you'll still be able to play out your remaining bonus pool, and compete for standing within your division until the end of the season.
• If you're pursuing a league promotion, you still have a chance to get there. The 2016 Season 1 lock will go into effect for the Americas region of Battle.net on Monday, March 21.

During the 2016 Season 1 lock, the hidden ratings used to determine promotions and demotions will continue to update, as well as be used for matchmaking purposes. Remember, your games during the lock still count—if you play significantly better or worse than your assigned league at the time of the lock, you may find yourself in a different league when 2016 Season 2 begins (after you play your first placement match).

The second season of 2016 ladder competition will begin on Monday, March 28. Season milestone rewards will be locked in at this time, and bonus pools will reset. Matchmaking and league placement will continue using results from the previous season.

A couple of days before 2016 Season 2 begins, we will also be applying a free character name change to all accounts that do not have one available at that time. Character name changes do not stack (you can only have one free name change at a time), so if you’ve been thinking about changing your name in StarCraft II, you’ll want to do so as soon as possible.