Season 4 to Season 5 Ladder Movement

How did you do in Season 5?

Below is a visualization of NA players I have on record who played ranked in both Season 4 and Season 5 (about 1.1 millions players in total) and how their league tier moved. I am taking their records on January 1st, 2015 for their Season 4 record and November 11th, 2015 for their Season 5 record. Note that there are many players who only have Season 4 or Season 5 and not the other - they are NOT included in this analysis. Master and Challenger players are not visualized as they constitute a tiny portion of the player population.

For Bronze, Silver, and Gold players, roughly 60% of them stayed within the same tier from Season 4 to Season 5 - keep in mind this percentage EXCLUDES players who played ranked in Season 4 but not Season 5. In other words, a sizeable majority of the players who played ranked in both seasons stayed within the same tier.

Interesting tidbits about the data that are not shown in the visualization:

• About 29% of Bronze players in Season 4 have no ranked records in Season 5. This number is 20%, 14%, 10%, and 9% for Silver to Diamond players. It's probably not that surprising that players from lower tier are morel likely to lose interests in playing ranked (or quit altogether).
• According to my data, 2 Bronze V players from Season 4 obtained Master tier in Season 5; 62 obtained Diamond. Before you lift your pitchforks, I don't think the Bronze-to-Master accounts are boosted - it's more likely that these were abandoned accounts, taken over for streaming purposes.
• On the other hand, 7 Challenger players and 26 Master players from Season 4 dropped to Gold in Season 5. This is likely due to decay.

You can mouse over the bands to see additional information about the data.