The problem with the current ladder system, and also with the competitive ladder system that is being proposed here, is that it tries to do two things at the same time:
1) determining the relative skill levels of players, such as for matchmaking purposes
2) organizing a huge monthly tournament
Those are just two different things. Look at Elo rating in chess for example: games in official tournaments will influence your Elo rating, but the Elo rating is not the tournament itself (and the winner of the tournament is not necessarily the person with the highest Elo rating).
So, some kind of Tournament mode would work better IMHO. The ladder itself could be replaced by a scoring system where the score is not reset each month, only decreased a bit if you didn’t play enough non-casual games (so that people won’t try to protect their rating by not playing).
The problem with the current ladder system, and also with the competitive ladder system that is being proposed here, is that it tries to do two things at the same time:
1) determining the relative skill levels of players, such as for matchmaking purposes
2) organizing a huge monthly tournament
Those are just two different things. Look at Elo rating in chess for example: games in official tournaments will influence your Elo rating, but the Elo rating is not the tournament itself (and the winner of the tournament is not necessarily the person with the highest Elo rating).
So, some kind of Tournament mode would work better IMHO. The ladder itself could be replaced by a scoring system where the score is not reset each month, only decreased a bit if you didn’t play enough non-casual games (so that people won’t try to protect their rating by not playing).