Dota 2 MMR Explained (2026): MMR per Win and Rank Confidence

You win a ranked game and gain 21 MMR; your friend wins one and gains 29. Neither number is a bug. Dota 2's matchmaking rating follows a small set of rules that Valve has described in its own patch notes, plus a few things it has never published. This guide separates the two as they stand on 2 November 2026: what MMR is, what a win is worth and why, how Rank Confidence changes the size of every swing, the community MMR behind every star, how many net wins a star or a medal takes, and which games never touch your ranked MMR at all.

What MMR is, and who can see it

MMR is the rating the matchmaker uses to put players of similar skill in the same game. Dota 2 keeps one ranked MMR per account: Valve merged the separate core and support ratings on 3 March 2020, so the same number goes up and down whether you play carry or hard support. Ranked is still queued by position, but the position doesn't have its own rating.

Your exact MMR is visible only to you. Everyone else sees the medal and its stars, from Herald 1 to Divine 5, or Immortal with a leaderboard place at the top. Valve doesn't publish the MMR where each star starts. The figures everyone uses come from the community, and the table further down lists every one.

How much MMR a win is worth

The rule comes from Valve's patch 7.33c notes (May 2023). Valve "modified the MMR gained and lost from matches when teams have varying skill" to better match each team's expected chance of winning, and said that for players with high Rank Confidence the change is "closer to +/-25 MMR". Valve didn't publish a formula, and we won't invent one. The rule is enough to read your own results, though:

So once your confidence is settled, a +21 after a win usually means your team was the favourite, and a +29 that it was the underdog. Over many games those differences tend to even out: the matchmaker tries to make games close, and the MMR change tracks how close they really were.

Rank Confidence: why some games move you more

Rank Confidence is Valve's name for how sure the system is that your MMR is right. When it is low, each game moves your MMR a long way; as your results line up with what the system expects, confidence rises and the swings settle toward the ±25 Valve describes. Two moments put you in the low-confidence zone for certain:

• A new account. Since patch 7.33 (April 2023) calibration has no fixed number of games: your first medal appears once Rank Confidence reaches 30 %.
• A recalibration. The optional once-a-year reset lowers your confidence on purpose so the system can re-measure you.

Valve hasn't published how much a streak of surprising results, such as beating stronger teams again and again, affects your confidence once it's settled. If your gains stay well above 25 for many games, though, the system is still finding your level.

The community Dota 2 Wiki describes the older "uncertainty" value as the standard deviation of a player's MMR and records a patch line that added Rank Confidence to the profile's Battle Stats. That's a community description, not a Valve explanation, but the idea is the same: the less certain the system is, the more each game counts.

From MMR to medal: every star

These are the community thresholds: 154 MMR a star from Herald to Ancient, 200 in Divine, and Immortal from about 5,620. Each cell is the MMR where that star starts. Valve has never published the cut-offs, so treat them as a close guide, not a guarantee; your own medal in the game is the only sure answer.

Medal	★1	★2	★3	★4	★5
Herald	0	154	308	462	616
Guardian	770	924	1,078	1,232	1,386
Crusader	1,540	1,694	1,848	2,002	2,156
Archon	2,310	2,464	2,618	2,772	2,926
Legend	3,080	3,234	3,388	3,542	3,696
Ancient	3,850	4,004	4,158	4,312	4,466
Divine	4,620	4,820	5,020	5,220	5,420
Immortal	from about 5,620 MMR · no stars, a leaderboard place when you're high enough

Community figures, as used on BoostPirate's Dota 2 pages. One indirect check from Valve: until patch 7.33c (May 2023), 5,620 was its minimum MMR for Immortal Draft.

How many wins a star takes

With a fixed gain per game the arithmetic is simple. A star below Divine is 154 MMR, so at ±25 it takes 154 ÷ 25 = 6.2 net wins; a Divine star is 200 MMR, or 8 net wins. "Net" matters: a loss cancels a win, so what moves you is how many more games you win than lose. To turn net wins into games, divide by your win rate's margin over 50 %:

Medal	MMR a star	Net wins a star	Net wins for the medal	Games at 55 %	Games at 60 %
Herald	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Guardian	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Crusader	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Archon	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Legend	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Ancient	154	6.2	31	about 310	about 155
Divine	200	8	40	about 400	about 200

Worked example: Archon 1 (2,310) to Legend 1 (3,080) is 770 MMR, or 31 net wins at ±25. At a 55 % win rate that's about 310 games, at 60 % about 155, and at 52 % nearly 800. Win rate matters far more than hours. The figures use community thresholds and Valve's settled ±25. Your real gains move with team ratings and with Rank Confidence.

Immortal Draft MMR

At the very top the rules shift again. Since 19 March 2025, any ranked game with a player above 8,500 MMR uses Immortal Draft rules, and Valve changed the MMR gained and lost in those games to take the draft choices into account. Players above 8,500 must register a permanent official name to queue ranked and can't queue ranked as a party, and their games are kept out of public match history and Valve's Web APIs. Valve put that line at "the top 0.5% of players". The whole top end is in our Immortal and leaderboard guide.

What doesn't change your ranked MMR

Only ranked games move ranked MMR. These don't:

• Turbo. The fast mode is unranked: quicker respawns, hasted couriers and a different economy, and no MMR. See Turbo vs ranked.
• Unranked matchmaking. Same maps and heroes, no change to your medal.
• Low Priority. While you're in it you can play only Single Draft against other Low Priority players, and neither you nor any party you're in can queue ranked. The fix is in our Low Priority guide.

Behaviour still matters, though. Valve confirmed in March 2024 that the matchmaker weighs "an estimate of skill range and player behavior scores" when it builds a match, so a falling behaviour score can change who you play with even though it isn't part of your MMR.

Help with the climb

If your win rate says the climb is longer than your evenings, our services are priced from the same engine as checkout. Five net wins in Archon are $10.35 today, and a whole medal, Archon 1 to Legend 1, $20.03 with about 3 days of play estimated. Dota 2 boosting isn't open for orders yet: get the launch alert on the Dota 2 page.

Know the rules first. The Steam Subscriber Agreement (updated 10 September 2026) forbids sharing your account or charging others to use it, and in December 2023 Valve game-banned accounts "shared with other users or services". Read the Risk Disclosure and is Dota 2 boosting bannable? before you order. Coaching, which works on the win rate in the formula above, stays inside the rules.

• Push: Ranked Wins, net wins at your medal; losses don't count toward the total.
• Climb: MMR Boost, star by star to the medal you want.
• Improve: 1-on-1 coaching with an Immortal coach.

Related guides: Dota 2 ranks explained · calibration and recalibration · rank distribution · Turbo vs ranked