Quick question about leaderboard mechanics

Phumade wrote:

Assuming that the top ten are shielded and all have about 1000 to 800 points. I have 799 points but i'm unshielded. Under the match making system, would a new player in the bracket not see the top ten as potential opponents? And am I right to assume that because I'm unshielded anyone can see me?

Basically, I'm wondering as the more of the brackets start to shield, does the available pool of matches start to shrink? and does that mean that every retaliation attack while shielded is ONLY from players that I attacked on my way up the bracket?


Thanks

Kung Phu panda

You can be matched against anyone unshielded in the entire game, not just in your own bracket, but yes once you shield only people who have you as a retaliation node (and a few people who happened to have you normally in their queue already) will be able to attack you. When you're unshielded anyone can "see" you, so long as you meet whatever criteria of the matchmaking system D3 is using at the time. So, more people shielding does decrease the available pool of matches, but there are so many people in the game and a small enough percentage are shielded that you should still be able to find people worth a decent amount of points no matter what time you're playing.