Deadlock Ranked Beta Season 2 is now live, bringing a smaller soft reset, a global rank redistribution and a series of rule changes that affect how players climb. Beta Season 2 runs until Thursday, March 11th 2027, lasting four months. Here is what Ranked players need to know.
Deadlock Ranked Beta Season 2 Dates and Rewards
The season started today and will end on Thursday, March 11th 2027. Players who took part in Beta Season 1, the first Ranked Beta Season, will receive a commemorative Hideout plaque showing their highest achieved rank once the new season rolls over.
How the Soft Reset and Rank Redistribution Work
Ranks are soft reset at the start of this season, but the reset is much smaller than the previous one. On average, players can expect to drop about one badge. Valve will also use each player’s winrate from the previous season to adjust placement by one or two subranks.
Separately, Valve is running a global rank redistribution to account for the recent influx of new players. Because of this, some players may actually gain rank despite the soft reset. The process happens in two steps: first the rank curve is redistributed, then the soft reset is applied. The final result differs for each player.
Existing Ranked players will not need to calibrate again. Players who did not take part in Ranked last season will calibrate as usual.
Rank Loss Shields, Rank Points and Ranking Up
- Rank loss shields: Phantom, Ascendant and Eternus players no longer receive shields. Everyone else has fewer: full-rank shields drop from 5 to 3, and subrank shields drop from 2 to 1. For example, a player at Mystic I with 0 rank points keeps the Mystic badge for three losses before dropping to Sentinel.
- Points per match: increased from 300 to 350.
- Ranking up: points needed to move up from a final subrank fall from 2,000 to 1,500. Points between subranks stay at 1,000.
Hero Bans and Initial Placements
Ranked matches now allow 4 hero bans per match, up from 3. The highest initial placement is Ascendant I, with potential for up to Ascendant III depending on previous-season performance. Last season the cap was Oracle VI. For another take on ranked bans, see how Apex Legends is handling legend bans in Ranked.
New Hero Unlock System in Ranked
Hero unlocking in Ranked now uses a point system instead of counting wins alone. Unlocking a hero requires 35 points, earning 2 points per win and 1 point per loss. Under the old 15-win requirement, a player at a 50% win rate would have needed the equivalent of 45 points. Valve says deep knowledge and confidence on a hero remain important for Ranked play.
Reworked Ranked Leaderboards
Valve has reworked the leaderboard backend to fix numerous bugs. Each Ranked season now has its own leaderboard. To appear on it, a player must play at least 50 Ranked matches in that season within the last 30 days, and ranking is based on current badge progress.
Hero-specific leaderboards require at least 15 Ranked matches with that hero in the last 30 days. Those rankings use current badge progress along with recent win/loss performance on that hero.
Catch up on the latest hero tuning in our Deadlock minor update from November 4th.
Source: Valve’s official Deadlock Steam announcement on Ranked Beta Season 2.