How we detect premades
PremadeIQ flags pre-arranged groups (premades) in Epic Battlegrounds — and it is built to do that fairly. Here is exactly how it works, and why an ordinary player will not get mislabeled.
We remember every match
The addon quietly records each Epic BG scoreboard — who played, which side, damage and healing, and whether they entered as a mercenary. The Uploader sends it to the server. Over time this builds a history of who keeps showing up together.
Two things we work out from that history
Who is whose alt. Characters on the same Battle.net account share account-wide achievements earned at the very same moment. We use that match to fold a player's alts into one person — so a leader and all of their alt characters count as one. We only fold on a confident match: a couple of achievements that happen to line up do not make someone an alt.
Who is a mercenary. A player fighting for the faction opposite their home faction opted into mercenary mode — a deliberate choice they make at an NPC, never something the game does automatically. This matters: premades often opt in together to slip onto the enemy side and stack it.
Leaders are marked by hand
A known premade leader is marked manually — just one character. From there the system automatically follows every alt on that account.
Some players simply take raid lead without running a premade. We mark them separately, as a raid lead. The addon calmly notes that they usually lead the raid — no sound, no alarm — and the people who play alongside them are not counted as a premade.
On a match page — three levels of confidence
From certain to likely:
★ Leader
A marked premade leader, or any of their alts.
⛓ Confirmed member
A player confirmed to be in the leader's premade, in any of three ways. By history — they keep landing on the leader's team, measured by share of their own games (not raw count, so a regular who just plays a lot stays clear). By mercing in with the leader — this match, far more mercenaries than usual piled onto one side, and the leader was among them (a deliberate, coordinated act; more on that below). Or by doing it again and again — three or more separate matches entering a mercenary stack beside that same leader.
≈ Likely premade
This level covers two cases — both meaning "we see a link, but we won't assert it".
A mercenary group. Many players take mercenary mode alone for a faster queue, so a pile of mercenaries on one side is only a hint by itself. Confidence comes when the same mercenaries keep entering battles together and no leader we track is among them: each of them is flagged as a likely premade, and the battle as a possible premade. The stack is framed in the battle list, and the match page carries a line about that side. If a known premade is already on that side, the line says such a group came in alongside it.
History short of the bar. A player keeps landing on the leader's team and clears the share test, but has fewer shared matches than we require before saying so with confidence. Such players used to be invisible — and a single game could make someone appear in the list one hour and vanish the next. Now both they and the evidence are visible: how many matches together, out of how many.
The strongest tell: a mercenary next to the leader
Mercenary mode is switched on by hand at an NPC — a deliberate choice, never something the game does to you. So when a known premade leader takes mercenary, and a whole stack of mercenaries lands on the same side with them in the same match, that is direct, joint coordination, not coincidence.
We weight this signal above any amount of co-play history — and it is hard to argue with: you chose to queue in with them.
Crowns 👑 — how many groups came in together
Every group that queued together keeps its own leader, wearing a crown, inside the raid. So the number of crowns on a side is a lower bound on how many pre-arranged groups entered the match. The match page shows it in each team's header: exact and by name for the side our players were on, and as "at least N" for the opponents. One crown is just the raid lead; the signal starts at two. If the game won't let us read the opponents' crowns, we show nothing for them — not a zero that would read as "no groups".
Every battle — and every battle of one premade
Full access includes the Battles page: the whole history, from the very first battle, filtered by date, map, winner, player (together with their alts) and premade. We call it a battle of that premade when its leader — on any of their alts — played together with their people or beside a group of mercenaries who keep entering together, or when most of their roster gathered on one side even without the leader. A leader alone is a name, not a detection. The "latest premade" card on the home page uses the same rule, and it is checked against the match page. The Enemy premades tab and the leader's profile link to it with "All battles of this premade".
Why we do not accuse people lightly
This is the part that matters most.
- We measure share, not count. A high-volume player crosses paths with everyone simply by playing a lot. Counting raw co-appearances would smear that player as "in every premade." Measuring the share of their games keeps them clear — and lights up the real members. The one exception is shared mercenary entries, which we do count outright: two people cannot land in the enemy faction together by accident. We require three of them, and only for players we have seen in at least ten matches.
- One party is not a premade. If, as far as our data reaches, a leader never brings more than one five-player group into a match at a time, that is a group of friends. We do not flag their regular teammates — not on the match page, not in the game. The addon still warns you about the leader themself, and evidence from a particular match, such as mercing in together, still counts.
- Old history fades. We look at shared matches over the last six months (180 days). Someone who once played with a leader and then stopped drops out of that premade on their own over time.
- A pile of mercenaries is not proof. Mercenary mode is often taken alone for a faster queue, and several such players easily land on one side by chance. So we look not at how many mercenaries there are but at whether these same people have entered as mercenaries together before. Solo queuers are left alone.
- Three levels = honest confidence. ★ we know. ⛓ proven by history. ≈ likely by structure — likely, not an accusation.
And a heads-up in the game
As soon as the gates open and the game reveals the enemy team, the addon checks it against the known-premade list and warns you by sound and in chat. On an Epic the enemy roster fills in gradually, so the check keeps running through the opening minutes and fires once — the moment it finds a match.
Give to get — why you upload to see it
PremadeIQ runs on shared data: the premade history is only as good as the matches the community feeds in. So access is reciprocal — you contribute your own battlegrounds, and in return you get everyone else's. Nothing here costs money.
- One upload a week keeps the in-game warnings about known leaders, the odds-to-win line, the full leaderboard and the deserter counts switched on. Stop for a week and the live data stops flowing — until your next upload, which restores it instantly.
- Five matches a week unlock everything else: every premade's roster in the game (the addon then knows the leader's people too, and spots the premade even when the leader isn't in the match), player search, the Battles page with the whole history and a premade filter, match breakdowns, alts and premade regulars, and the names on the deserter list.
- Your first week is full access straight away. For seven days after you first sign in with Discord everything is open without a single upload, provided your Discord account was at least a month old at that point.
- Patreon supports the project. It does not unlock anything: there is no paid tier any more.
In short: we remember every match, work out who is an alt and who is a mercenary, mark the leaders, and then — in descending order of confidence — light up their accounts, their regular teammates, and their mercenary stacks. But only where the evidence actually holds up.