 Hello and welcome back to Enter the Combat League, a video series where we take you, the player, through the different ranks of Combat League and offer our tips for how to progress through those ranks to go from a new combatant all the way up to the godly ranks of the top. Continuing from our last video, it's now time to go into detail about the middle three ranks of Combat League, which are Champion, Master and Grandmaster. These are the ranks where your matches will begin to get noticeably different to what you've experienced up to this point, and there are a few factors as to why this is the case, so let's go through them now. Champion is the first rank of this video and where you'll begin to notice a big change immediately. This is the rank where a new feature of Combat League is introduced. Up to this rank, you can play at your leisure and will always have the same amount of points no matter what, whereas once you hit Champion, your points will begin to slowly decay each day if you go a full three days without playing a single set. This introduces an element of responsibility to you as the player, as if you want to continue climbing the ranks, you'll have to play at least one set every three days, otherwise you'll begin to lose the points that you've earned. This isn't as hard to maintain as you might think, as it's only one match that has to be played in order to stop your points from dropping, and even if you lose the match, you won't lose more points than you would have lost via a point to K anyway. Gameplay-wise, you should see Champion as a small extension from Warrior, as by this point, you would have played a decent amount of sets and will still be in roughly the same point of matchmaking. You'll find that the bracket for higher ranked players that you come across will open up slightly and will typically stop getting matched against apprentice ranked players as well. You should be able to find yourself being able to get through Champion with the same kind of strategies that got you here in the first place and with consistency can earn the rank of Master. Master rank can act as a turning point for where you begin to find players with a more solid understanding of Mortal Kombat 11. Typically, players that reach this rank will be continuing to climb and won't settle until at least Grand Master. You'll also find here is where you might begin to be matched against players in ranks such as Demigod, so have to make sure that you're prepared for anything. By Master, you should have a firm grasp on which characters you enjoy playing and where you should really be focusing on your own knowledge of the characters that you play and how to be ready for common online situations, how to anti-air, punishing wake-up attacks, etc. The more comfortable you are with your own character, the more you can focus on the variables of the match itself. This is also where you'll begin to start seeing that points lost from losing could begin to add up, even though you'll usually find that you'll always win more points than you lose, by this point you'll want to start paying attention to the amount of points you are losing. With this kind of attention can typically bring frustration, especially if you aren't used to ranked playlists and it's more common than you'd think for players to begin to feel this way. Try to keep a level head. Remember that climbing the ranks is a gradual process and will take time, especially if you're trying to improve at the game as much as you can at the same time as climbing those ranks. Getting frustrated can easily slip you into making more mistakes and not being as ready for situations that you should be looking for, such as punishing mistakes that the opponent might be making. If you've made it to Master, you're doing something right, but there's still more that you can achieve and one of them is Grandmaster. Grandmaster is a common goal that many players aim for. It might not be the highest rank in the game, but it's certainly higher than most reach across the course of a Combat League season. Here is where you'll begin to fight players of Demigod and even above quite regularly, which will act as a double-edged sword as even though winning will be tough, you'll win a huge chunk of points for the win and lose almost nothing by comparison. This will be even more noticeable if you fight players of God rank as well. At this point of Combat League, you'll absolutely want to make sure that you are used to the popular characters that are seen regularly. Fan favourites like Scorpion, Liu Kang and Sub-Zero are still very popular online and even in ranked play, so you'll want to be as knowledgeable as possible in these match-ups in ways that will make a difference when fighting them, such as knowing what moves are punishable, how long their attacks take to recover, what their options are from full screen and many more instances like this. As well as character-specific knowledge, you're going to want to make sure that you are as clued up on the game itself as much as you can. By the time you reach this point, you'll have a grasp on how to play MK11 online and ideally will have an idea of what mechanics you need to understand the most. You'll want as little room for doubt as possible so you can focus on the important stuff. This is the point where consistency is absolutely the most important thing. Don't be afraid to lose, but obviously winning will always result in more points being earned. Grandmaster is also where you'll take a small jump in how many points you lose as well, arguably being the first real point in the ranks that you want to make sure that you are staying consistent against other grandmasters or in the ranks just below you. These three ranks are quite the jump from the kind of matches you will have in the lower three ranks, but progression is still an important factor of any ranked climb, and we hope that these tips help you grow all the more as you eventually aim for the very top. Thank you for watching and we'll see you on the next episode of Enter the Combat League.