Trophies

**EDITOR'S NOTE**: This page talks about Trophy Penalty which has been removed in a recent update with the introduction of the echelon system. This page is in the process of being updated.

# Trophies and Penalty

## Trophy System

In LSWB trophies are used as a measure of player capability and progress. Players earn or lose trophies by winning matches or losing matches. Trophies unlock access to higher planets. Trophy levels are measured independently for dark side (DS) and light side (LS). Trophy levels for each side are used for matchmaking. All time high combined total LS and DS trophies are used for Game Center leaderboards (not the in game leaderboards). When discussing trophy levels, players typically refer to their total trophy level.

## Earning and Losing Trophies

Trophies are only earned or lost through regular (ladder) battles against human players. Events do not affect trophies. Neither do matches against bots (online or offline). Winning a match increases a player’s trophies while losing a match reduces trophies. A draw does not affect trophy count.

The margin of victory (1 medal or 5 or base defeat) has no effect on the amount of trophies won or lost. Instead, the relative number of trophies won or lost are higher or lower based on the relative difference in trophies between the two players when the match began, similar to the Elo player rating system.

If you were playing LS with a LS trophy count pretty close to your opponent’s DS trophy count, then you will gain or lose a moderate number of trophies if you win or lose. This is because the players are considered to have a similar chance of winning. However if you lose against an opponent with a much higher trophy count, you will lose only a small number of trophies, because it was expected that you had a small chance of victory. If you win against that same player, it would be considered an upset win and you would gain a large number of trophies.

## Skill vs Card Levels

There are several factors that affect the outcome of a match, including skill, card levels, opening hand and luck. The trophy system doesn’t account for these factors independently. So a player’s trophy count, if the player tries to win every game, will primarily be a reflection of their card levels and skill combined. A less skilled player with significantly higher card levels may have a higher trophy rating than a more skilled but lower levels opponent. However, trophy dropping can have a significant impact on the usefulness of the trophy rating system. See the trophy dropping and penalty sections for further discussion.

## Season Reset

At the end of each season, trophies are 'reset' to a fixed level for all players beyond a certain level. This level has not risen every season, rather it has gone up when new planets have been added, and is some distance above the minimum threshold to unlock the final planet. For the end of season 8, this target level was 5300 trophies. It has consistently been raised as new planets have been added, to be 800 trophies above the threshold for the final planet.

### Players above 5300 trophies

Players who are above this trophy level have their trophies reset to 5300 trophies, 2650 per side, while receiving some number of studs (for the most recent reset, the highest stud awards were approximately 18000 studs). Minimum trophy levels to trigger the penalty are reset, as described under **Trophies**.

### Players below 5300 trophies but with one side above 2650

Players who are below 5300 trophies do not have either side's trophies reduced, *even if one side is above 2650 trophies.* Player Ethan E tested this at the end of season 5, lowering his dark side trophies to zero before the season end reset, while maintaining his light side trophies at over 3000. Upon season reset, his trophies were unchanged - meaning his light side deck was several hundred trophies higher than any other player in the game at that point.

### Players close to 2500 trophies per side

The players who are likely most impacted by the reset are those whose trophies are several hundred below the reset on either side. They will suddenly be faced with an influx of players with high powered decks. This might be particularly noticeable for players with decks close to 2000 trophies. While they themselves will have seen no evidence of the reset, the very large number of decks now in the 2100-2350 range may mean they are highly likely to match with decks at the top of their range.

As the season progresses, things will slowly return to how they were: some high power deck players will immediately pull away from the trophy reset line and be out of range within days. A significant number however, will intentionally lose their first few games, and continue to fight in the [[1]] range. Some will stay this low for a week, some for two or even three weeks, before moving up for higher competition. Some will stay indefinitely in this range - however those players were likely in this range before the reset, so this is a 'return to normal'.

Players who are naturally in this range should realize:

* Their skill level has not suddenly deteriorated: things really have gotten suddenly harder, as a result of being quite close to 'end game', even if there exists a wide range of deck power at 'end game'.
* If they are struggling to stay out of the penalty, they are highly encouraged to join the LSWB discord. High deck strength players on the discord will usually award free base kills on request to players who are struggling, when they are in this trophy range. (When you're above 7000 trophies, or if it’s the end of the season, you're on your own!)

## Matchmaking

Unfortunately, the game matchmaking appears to only consider trophy levels when matching players for ladder play. The allowed relative trophy count difference is also rather large, around 500 trophies higher or lower (though the system prefers closer - ranges this wide are primarily seen at very high trophy levels). This can result in matches that may feel unfair due to card level differences, even if both players’ trophy counts reflect their true ability.

If there are not enough similar rating players joining matches at the same time, then the game will struggle to matchmake people. If no match is found within 60s, the game provides an automated 'bot' opponent. Bot matches use tournament rules, where card levels are set to 4 and no trophies are earned or lost (unless in penalty: see below). Scans, medals, studs, crystals and leaderboard points are still awarded for victories against bots (assuming the player isn’t in penalty). When in penalty against a bot, you can earn a single trophy.

## Trophy Dropping

Unfortunately, trophy counts often do not represent a player’s true ability. If a player purposely loses a portion of their matches (trophy drops), they can maintain a narrow range of trophy count that is below the maximum that they could achieve with their current skill and card levels. This breaks the game’s overly simplistic matchmaking that depends on trophy counts being a true representation of how likely a player is to win a match.

Players trophy drop for various reasons. Probably the most common reason is to avoid the trophy drop penalty system (see next section). Another reason is to maximize rewards earned per time spent playing the game. For the top hundred or so players, trophy dropping is done so that they don’t wait long times for matches, just to be playing a bot instead of a real player.

For further discussion, see Trophy dropping and its impact.

## Trophy Drop Penalty System

The developers have implemented a penalty system in an attempt to discourage trophy dropping. If a player is considered to be purposely dropping trophies, the game will penalize the player by not rewarding wins with crystals, studs or leaderboard points. Scans, medals and trophies are still earned for wins. Trophies continue to be lost for losses.

The penalty system sets the threshold for penalty at 250 trophies below the player’s maximum achieved trophy count for the **season**. The penalty is set separately for each side, so your dark side can be in penalty while your light side is not. Penalty is exited by earning enough trophies to get above the penalty threshold. The penalty is instantly applied and removed, so a win that brings you out of penalty will get full rewards. When you are in penalty, C3PO will inform you of this on the screen shown at the end of the match. Pay attention to this screen as it will show the penalty threshold, stated as "Earn rewards at XXXX trophies." The game does not tell you your penalty threshold unless you are already in penalty.

For example, Sally started the season with 2000 trophies on her light side. Her LS penalty threshold was set to (2000-250=) 1750 trophies. Her dark side was at 1900 trophies at the start of the season, so her DS penalty threshold was set to (1900-250=) 1650 trophies. However, Sally’s LS climbs to a season high of 2400 trophies. This raises her LS trophy penalty threshold to (2400-250=) 2150 trophies. Sally then loses several matches in a row and is now at 2100 trophies. She is in penalty on LS until she wins enough to get it above 2150 trophies. As soon as Sally is above 2150 on her LS, the penalty is instantly lifted and she earns rewards as normal.

The penalty threshold is reset at the instant the season resets. It resets to whatever trophy counts (on rach side) the player has at that instant. There is no other way to reset the threshold. So players that find themselves constantly in penalty should drop trophies **before** the end of the season. Then they can maintain a trophy range that keeps them out of penalty by dropping ~100 trophies before surpassing their season maximum.

It should be noted that the penalty system does not apply to all players. The game has certain criteria to exclude players that have not progressed past a certain point. Recently the criteria is anyone who has never (not just the current season, but ever) reached the highest planet does not have the penalty system applied to them. However, due to the cascading effect of pushing higher players down to lower trophies, lower progression players are still affected by having people trophy drop down into their range.

In order to allow players to climb out of penalty if they are playing 'bot' opponents, wins over bots provide a very small number of trophies if in penalty (to be confirmed)\*.

## Effects of the Penalty System

The trophy penalty system was implemented to try to discourage high level players from playing at low trophies and crushing their opponents, since the game only matchmakes based on trophies. However, it is widely known for inadvertently punishing players that are playing their best and not purposely trophy dropping.

Win streaks and loss streaks are natural in any game. If a player is already at their true average trophy level and has a several game win streak, they will suddenly be at an unsustainable trophy level that has just raised their penalty threshold. Once they inevitably settle back down into their typical trophy count, they are now at or below the penalty threshold. This results in players who don’t trophy drop being the most likely to be caught by the very system that was meant to punish trophy droppers.

This is most likely to occur at the start of a season because the highest players get pushed to lower trophy counts at season reset (see above section). This makes it harder for people near that reset threshold and can cause them to spend most of the season in and out of penalty through no fault of their own. This causes a cascading effect where many players trophy drop at season end to avoid the higher players moving down.

## Commentary

Thanks to the trophy drop penalty system, more players than ever are trophy dropping before season start and strictly managing trophy levels so that they can avoid penalty most of the season. This has the effect of making it more rare than ever to have matches where players have similar cards and skill levels. It is a source of frustration for new and experienced players, especially those that don’t understand this complex and not well documented system. Players that are playing as high in trophies as they can are getting matched against people that are surpassing their trophy level and have higher card levels. Some view this as cheating while others view it as a natural consequence of the current system and its incentive structure.

High level players that trophy drop point to the fact that there are many disincentives to playing high (long wait times, many bot matches, the same few human players, fewer rewards for close wins than base defeats, no ability to try different approaches without risk of penalty) while no extra rewards for playing high. The only incentive is bragging rights for climbing the Game Center leaderboard, which many people do not even know exists or how to find it. Many of these high level players will start low (4000 - 4600 trophies) hover there or slightly above for a few weeks, then climb as high as they can for the last week or so of the season so that they can see how good they are. These players will also point out that in order to manage their trophies, they must give away base defeats to their opponents as often as they take them, otherwise their trophies (and penalty threshold) will increase. They have even developed codes to help other players avoid penalty and request help if they are in penalty.

The majority of the community, including the trophy droppers, hates the current system. High level players want to spend most of their time playing other high level players. But they need an incentive rather than the current disincentives. Several possible solutions have been put forth, including higher rewards for wins at high levels (more cards per scan or higher prevalence of epics and champions), daily special events with higher rewards of studs and crystals that can only be entered if a player has a high trophy count, matchmaking that matches primarily based on card levels rather than trophies, and clans so that players can chose to match specific opponents.

In the end, people are going to act logically and game the game. Until the developers implement a system that provides a significant benefit to players to play as high as they can, they will not stop people from purposely losing some games to suppress their trophy count. The game developers need to take action to address the root of the problem or it will not go away.