Installing & Using Legion Ladder
Legion Ladder is a free companion app that runs alongside Warcraft III on the lobby host's PC. It can auto-ban known troublemakers, greet and balance players by skill, track a Global ELO rating, and answer the chat commands below — all without anyone else needing to install anything.
Only the host needs Legion Ladder running for hosting and shared lobby tools. The self-only kr! and ru! translation commands are the exception: the player typing one must have Legion Ladder running on their own PC.
Installing the app
- Download the installer (or the portable version) and run it on the PC you play Warcraft III on.
- Close Warcraft III if it's currently running.
- Open Legion Ladder, go to Setup, confirm it found your Warcraft III folder, and click Install bridge.
- Restart Warcraft III.
- Host a custom lobby — Legion Ladder connects automatically, with nothing further to do.
New installs start with ELO greetings, game commands, title-detected minimum ELO, PermaBan auto-ban, reliability policies, and automatic 4v4 balancing enabled. Review them under Setup's Game Commands section; automatic missing-ELO kicking and the saved minimum-ELO fallback remain off until you enable them.
What it does for your lobby
PermaBan List & auto-ban
Keep a personal list of troublemakers. If one joins a lobby you're hosting, you get an alert — and, if you've turned it on, the app warns them in chat and removes them a few seconds later.
ELO greeting
Automatically welcomes each new player and asks their skill rating, so you know who you're playing with before the game starts. Common replies such as 3k+, 3k +, and 3 k + are understood, and returning players are remembered.
ELO balancing
Once everyone's rating is known, automatically (or on request with balance!) rearranges teams to keep both sides as even as possible. After teams are final, it can honor movable players' color preferences with same-team swaps that never change team ELO. The current host remains fixed in red, but can save preferences for later lobbies where they join as a guest.
Enforced player slot locks
Pin selected guests to their current lobby slots. Locked players are excluded from balancing, and ordinary player-for-player moves are automatically reversed.
Minimum ELO
Set a saved skill floor, or opt into detecting a per-lobby minimum from a title containing one clear rating such as 2k, 2k+, or 2000. Known players below the effective threshold are warned and removed automatically.
Global ELO ranking
A rating Legion Ladder computes from real, played-to-completion matches — separate from whatever players tell the host in chat. Check it anytime with globalelos!, or see the full leaderboard and how it's calculated here.
Game history
Every lobby you host or join is saved locally in the app, so you can look back at who played, when, and how the teams stacked up.
Reliability score
Reliability tracks how consistently a player stays in joined lobbies until the game starts. Welcomes show a compact percentage; type reliability? in a hosted lobby for the explanation.
AFK announcements
Let your lobby know you'll be away for a bit, and for how long, with afk!.
Chat commands
Shared commands work when the lobby host is running Legion Ladder. The self-only kr! and ru! commands run through the typing player's own Legion Ladder installation.
Anyone in the lobby can use
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| stats! | Shows you your own join stats and Global ELO, privately. |
| globalelo! | Shows your Global ELO, win rate, win/loss record, and readable Legion Ladder profile link. |
| elos! | Shows everyone's known ELO grouped by team, plus the total ELO for T1 and T2. |
| globalelos! | Shows everyone's Global ELO — the rating Legion Ladder computes from real matches. |
| color! <choices> | Saves ordered choices from blue, green, purple, teal, yellow, orange, and pink. Names are case-insensitive, and choices follow your BattleTag between Legion Ladder hosts. Red is unavailable. A current host can save choices but remains fixed in red while hosting. |
| colors! | Shows your saved color choices in priority order. |
| color! reset | Clears your saved color choices. |
| kr! <English> | Translates your English message into Korean. This self-only command requires Legion Ladder running on your own PC. |
| ru! <English> | Translates your English message into Russian. This self-only command requires Legion Ladder running on your own PC. |
| reliability? | Explains how lobby reliability works, why staying helps games start sooner, and how low scores can trigger automatic moderation. |
| commands! | Lists the commands available in this lobby. |
Host only
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| elo! <value> | Sets your own ELO for balancing (e.g. elo! 2k, elo! 18.5, elo! 2500) — usually not needed, since it can be read automatically from your game files. |
| set! elo <slot> <elo> | Corrects the balancing ELO saved for the player currently occupying that displayed lobby slot (e.g. set! elo 5 1550). |
| balance! | Rearranges the current lobby's teams to even out ratings, right now. |
| lock! <slot> | Locks the player currently in that displayed slot. Legion Ladder excludes them from balancing and safely swaps them back if they move. |
| unlock! <slot> | Removes the lock anchored to that displayed slot. |
| unlock! all | Removes every player slot lock in the current lobby. |
| locks! | Lists every locked displayed slot and the BattleTag anchored to it. |
| refresh! | Refreshes the hosted lobby's public game-list entry by safely closing, then reopening, every slot. |
| min! <elo> | Overrides any title-detected minimum for this lobby only and gives lower-rated guests 10 seconds to correct their ELO before removal. Saved Setup controls are unchanged. min! elo <elo> also works. |
| min! off | Turns the minimum ELO requirement off for this lobby only without changing saved Setup controls. |
| afk! <minutes> [reason] | Lets the lobby know you'll be away for a bit, with an optional reason. Typing a normal chat message or using afk! off marks you back; automated app messages and kick/ban actions do not. |
Common questions
I typed a command and nothing happened — why?
Only a lobby whose host is running Legion Ladder will respond, and some features need to be turned on in that host's Setup screen first.
Do I need to install the app to see ELO greetings or use stats!/elos!?
No — only the host needs it running. Everyone else in the lobby can use it for free.
Can the app read a minimum ELO from my lobby title?
Yes — the host can enable title detection in Setup. One unambiguous rating such as 2k, 2k+, 2.5k, or 2000 overrides the saved minimum for that lobby only. The host can override title detection for the current lobby with min! <elo> without changing either saved Setup control. A later lobby without a rating returns to the host's existing saved policy, and conflicting ratings are ignored.
What's the difference between elos! and globalelos!?
elos! shows the ELO players have told the host in this lobby, grouped with T1 and T2 totals. globalelos! shows the separate rating Legion Ladder computes from actual match results — see how Global ELO works for more.