FYI the ranking was removed because I was afk in the server all the time.

What about reserved slots?

Other than the arbitrary lowering of player slots and not having a carve out for reserved slot I am not aware of any new changes? Are they planning something else?

I have sent a pm requesting to be added back to the whitelist and that I will no longer afk in the server.

I hope to launch another ranked server along with an unranked server when I return from Japan to fill the gap in servers from TA being shut down. I wanted to do this before I left but was too busy.