Content Update 2.2.2 will be released tomorrow. Its Patch Notes are available here! It introduces the Labyrinth Leaderboards, new microtransactions, bug fixes, the Summon Lightning Golem skill gem, The Star of Wraeclast and much more!

The Labyrinth Leaderboards enable a new type of competitive game play in Path of Exile! Players are ranked based on how quickly they have completed the Labyrinth. To be eligible for the leaderboard, you must enter the labyrinth alone. You must complete the labyrinth before the daily changeover to the next labyrinth layout. To be eligible for the Normal Labyrinth leaderboards you must be level 40 or lower. To be eligible for the Cruel Labyrinth leaderboards you must be level 60 or lower. Once the patch has been deployed, you will be able to find the leaderboards at https://www.pathofexile.com/labyrinth. The leaderboards will start tomorrow when the update is deployed. They award their prizes at midnight UTC (which is around 5pm PST for example).

At the end of each day the top player from each difficulty and league will be awarded a unique jewel. There's a different one for each difficulty:

Currently there are two issues that we plan to address in a follow-up patch later this week or early next week. These both relate to the level cap for the Labyrinth leaderboards (which is 40 in Normal, for example).

• Playing the Labyrinth grants you experience which can cause you to become too high level. We are adding a simple vendor recipe that grants a book that de-levels your character by one level. This is preferred over the option of pausing your experience gain because you can use it for fixing the mistake after the fact if you get too high level.
• Currently we don't prevent players who have skill points from higher difficulties from entering a leaderboard as long as they're under the level cap. This will change in the next week so that you can only enter the Normal Labyrinth leaderboard if you haven't left Normal difficulty on that character (and the same for the Cruel one). The lower leaderboards are intended for dedicated Labyrinth-running characters that try to get the best possible times. For now it's okay to use characters with additional points to compete, but this will change when the follow-up patch is deployed.