There is nothing secret about it, when it was announced on the forums.
This is how you get more people to play ladder
I never seen the forum announcement since it wasn't posted in news, announcements, the matchmaker pool thread, or pinned anywhere. I do now see there was a random post that's already buried a page down in general. This is only my fourth time looking at the FAF forums in the last 6 months. I imagine most people will entirely miss it if that's how it's being communicated though.