Deadlock Ranks: Full Tier List, MMR & Distribution

Deadlock ranks are the competitive ladder badges you earn in Ranked Mode, Valve's competitive queue for its 6v6 hero shooter MOBA. The system runs from Obscurus, the unranked starting point, all the way up to Eternus, with every rank in between split into six subranks numbered I to VI.

Ranked Mode first launched on October 10, 2024, was replaced by a Skill Rating system on November 21, 2024, and returned on July 30, 2026 with Beta Season 1. That first ranked season runs until November 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM PDT, with the next season starting immediately after. If you want to know where you sit, here is the full Deadlock ranks breakdown: every tier, how placements and MMR-style rank points work, and how the player base is actually distributed.

Deadlock Ranks List (Tier Overview)

The Deadlock ranks run from lowest to highest, with Eternus sitting at the top as the most skilled tier available. Obscurus is the unranked badge, followed by eleven ranked tiers from Initiate up through Ascendant and Eternus.

| Rank | Badge material | | --- | --- | | Obscurus | Unranked | | Initiate | Brick | | Seeker | Stone | | Acolyte | Iron | | Sentinel | Bronze | | Mystic | Silver | | Ritualist | Gold | | Emissary | Platinum | | Oracle | Diamond | | Phantom | None | | Ascendant | None | | Eternus | None |

Each rank is further split into subranks I through VI, with VI as the highest subrank. The badge materials are mostly cosmetic flavor, from Brick at Initiate up through Diamond at Oracle, with the top three tiers carrying no listed material.

You can check your current Deadlock rank in the Hideout. A chalkboard shows your rank or placement progress along with your most recent ranked match, while a ticker tape beside it prints your latest results in green for wins and red for losses.

Ranked Mode Requirements

Ranked Mode is gated behind a few unlock conditions before you can queue. You need 60 wins in standard mode, and you need three heroes unlocked for ranked.

A hero unlocks for ranked after 15 wins in standard mode. Recently released heroes are exempt from this requirement for a limited time, but they do not count toward the three unlocked heroes you need to play ranked. These gates mean a fresh account has to put in real time in Standard Mode before it can touch the Deadlock ranks ladder.

You also cannot queue with active matchmaking restrictions or bans. Parties are capped at two players, placement matches are solo-only, and party members must be within one rank of each other. In Eternus, that gap tightens to three subranks.

Placements and Rank Points

Eligible players start with eight placement matches. Once placements are complete, the highest rank you can begin at is Oracle VI.

After placements, you gain or lose around 300 rank points per match, slightly adjusted for matchmaking quality and boosted by win streaks. Ranking up a single subrank costs 1,000 points, while moving to the next full rank costs 2,000 points.

The exception is Eternus, where subrank thresholds are percentile-based instead of a flat point cost. A patch on August 2, 2026 raised rank points per game by 20 percent, from 250 to 300. The July 30, 2026 update that brought Ranked Mode back also revamped matchmaking, letting players choose between Standard Mode and the new Ranked Mode.

The rank badge and progress bar are what you actually see in the UI, while the underlying score works like a hidden matchmaking rating that rises and falls with your results.

Demotion Protection and Win Streaks

Demotion protection keeps the climb from feeling too punishing. You get two matches of protection before dropping a subrank, and five matches before dropping a full rank. These show up as shield icons under your rank progress bar.

Win streaks add bonus points on top of your normal gains. The bonus starts at 70 points on your third consecutive win, rises by 20 points per extra win, and caps at 130 points on a six-game streak.

Some players have noted that demotion shields can let you climb with a negative win rate, since losses on shields cost nothing while win-streak bonuses recover ground quickly. Over a season this can slowly inflate the population upward. That is community feedback on the current design rather than an official statement, so treat it as unconfirmed.

Eternus Subrank Percentiles

Eternus is the one rank that does not use flat point costs. Instead, each Eternus subrank is gated by a percentile threshold within the Eternus pool.

| Eternus subrank | Percentile | | --- | --- | | I | 0% | | II | 25% | | III | 50% | | IV | 70% | | V | 85% | | VI | 95% |

These are the thresholds as listed by the wiki, and the exact cutoff meaning is slightly ambiguous, so treat the interpretation as unconfirmed. In practice, Eternus VI is reserved for the very top of the Eternus pool.

Rank Distribution in Season 1

Third-party tracker Statlocker publishes a Season 1 rank distribution, and it shows how steep the ladder gets near the top. Because it is community-sourced data, treat the exact numbers as approximate.

Roughly half of ranked players sit at or above Sentinel 2. From there the ladder narrows quickly: Oracle 1 covers the top 12.4 percent, Phantom 1 the top 4.4 percent, and Ascendant 1 the top 1.5 percent.

| Subrank | Top % overall | | --- | --- | | Initiate 1 | 100.0% | | Sentinel 2 | 50.3% | | Oracle 1 | 12.4% | | Phantom 1 | 4.4% | | Ascendant 1 | 1.5% | | Eternus 1 | 0.4% | | Eternus 6 | 0.0% |

At the very top, Eternus 1 covers the top 0.4 percent of players. Statlocker lists only 89 players at Eternus 6, the absolute peak, which rounds to the top 0.0 percent overall. By comparison, the tracker shows Eternus 1 at 358 players and Ascendant 1 at 1,095. Initiate, the lowest ranked tier, covers roughly 8 percent of the player base at the very bottom of the ladder.

Leaderboards and Ranked Match Rules

Ranked Mode also feeds into leaderboards. The global leaderboard shows the top 1,000 Deadlock players per region, plus up to three of their highest-rated heroes. Hero leaderboards show the top 1,000 players for each hero available in Normal mode, per region.

To appear on the global leaderboard you need at least 75 matches in the past 30 days. Hero leaderboards require 30 matches on that hero in the past 30 days plus 100 total wins with it. Leaderboard regions are North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

Before a match starts, you get 30 seconds to switch lanes or change to another unlocked hero, once per player. You cannot see whether the enemy team changed heroes, and a hero already picked by either team is unavailable to switch into. Three heroes can be banned in ranked matches, one more than in Standard.

If someone abandons before five minutes, the match becomes unscored and safe to leave for everyone except the leaver and their duo. After five minutes, it becomes unscored and safe to leave only for the leaver's team unless they manage to win. If that whole team leaves, the match ends and the enemy team wins.