Apex Legends Ranked is getting a two-season overhaul that starts with Legend Banning in Diamond+ lobbies this November and continues with a new Grandmaster tier, an Emerald rank, and a split Open/Pro-Am system in early 2027. Respawn published the Ranked roadmap on Steam, and it is more specific about Season 31 mechanics than about Season 32 rewards.
The announcement frames the Ranked changes around four goals: keep Ranked competitive, reward all players, offer more ways to show accomplishments, and maintain trust in fairness. Those goals translate into concrete changes to matchmaking, scoring, and rank structure.
Season 31 Adds Legend Banning to Diamond+ Matches
Starting in November, any Ranked match with Diamond or higher players will include a Legend Banning phase before Legend selection. Each player in a Diamond+ lobby chooses one Legend for possible banning. After votes are locked or the selection timer expires, the game shows each voted Legend with a percentage chance to be banned based on vote share. The system then randomly selects Legends using those percentages, and banned Legends cannot be selected for that match.
The current Ranked system has no ban phase at all. A high-tier lobby can repeatedly run the same dominant composition across an entire season, with pick rates driven by the strongest support and controller kits. Under the new system, a Legend with 80 percent of the vote does not get banned 100 percent of the time. Respawn specifically avoided a deterministic “most votes ban” because that would create a separate banning meta and replace one stale pick pattern with another.
For a Diamond+ player, the practical effect is that you cannot guarantee access to a single comfort pick or a must-have reset Legend. A squad that relies on a specific defensive anchor may need a backup plan in a meaningful share of matches depending on vote distribution. Coordinated vote stacking can increase pressure on a target Legend but cannot fully remove it from every game.
Legend Banning is tied to Drop Zone deployment. Respawn said the feature will be enabled alongside Drop Zone deployment, so any match with Diamond+ players uses it. The company will monitor how bans affect Legend selection and will iterate, but the core system is confirmed for Season 31.
Wide-Skill Lobbies Get Challenger and Goliath Entry Costs
The current Ranked system applies one entry cost table based on a player’s Rank Tier and division. In low-population periods, Respawn allows matchmaking to widen skill distribution to keep queue times manageable. That means a Bronze squad can end up in a Gold or Platinum lobby with the same Bronze entry cost, while a Diamond squad can load into a Gold lobby and pay Diamond entry costs. The result is often unfair risk for lower-tier squads and a farming opportunity for higher-tier squads.
Season 31 changes this by assigning each lobby a Lobby Tier, which is the median of all squads. If your squad is two or more Rank Tiers below the Lobby Tier, you enter a Challenger match and your entry cost is reduced. If you are two or more Rank Tiers above, you enter a Goliath match and your entry cost is increased. The adjustment is applied to the entry cost before the match, so players see exactly what they need to do to break even going in.
A Diamond squad dropped into a Gold Lobby Tier as a Goliath now pays a higher fee and needs more placement or kills to go positive. That reduces the value of farming lower-tier squads for easy RP. A Bronze squad marked as Challenger pays less and can still climb if it beats the odds. Respawn is also watching the adjustment values closely to prevent extreme boosting from squads that can dominate a lobby.
The system is squad-based, so premade stacks share the same entry cost label and the same strategic target. A three-stack that knows it is a Goliath may push early fights to farm lower-tier teams. A Challenger three-stack may play for placement because its reduced cost gives more room to climb with a single top finish.
Respawn has already tinkered with matchmaking parameters in this area, including a separate Plat+ matchmaking test that accepted longer queue times for tighter skill ranges. The new entry cost system changes scoring around whatever matchmaking produces. The separate Plat+ matchmaking test remains in place.
Road to Ranked Challenges Are Removed
Access to Ranked will move back to Account Level 20 in Season 31. Respawn is removing the Road to Ranked challenge set that was intended as a skill check for new accounts. The company said the challenges were not as effective as hoped and took too much time and effort for some players. The change lowers the barrier to Ranked and should increase population, which Respawn says helps match quality.
Easier access lets new accounts and cheaters enter Ranked faster. Respawn acknowledged that some players may worry about waves of cheaters and pointed to its anti-cheat work, including the EA Javelin anti-cheat system. The roadmap does not include a new Ranked-specific anti-cheat gate to replace Road to Ranked, and that gap is not addressed in the announcement.
Demotion Protection Becomes Visible
Demotion Protection already exists in Apex Ranked, but Respawn says it was unintentionally hidden. Season 31 gives it a clearer in-game display. The feature activates when a player is at risk of demotion from a single match, which can happen under the new Goliath entry cost. Players get three Demotion Shields. One shield is consumed each time a loss would drop them down a tier. Demotion only happens after all three shields are gone or the player gains enough RP to exit the protected state.
Goliath entry costs can be high enough to threaten demotion in one bad game. The visible shields let players know how many bad matches they can survive before dropping.
Season 32 Restructures Tiers and Splits Ranked
In early 2027, Respawn will replace Rookie with a new Iron rank and add Emerald between Platinum and Diamond. Iron is a standard rank without the special rules tied to Rookie. Emerald has four divisions, a new badge, and Aura representation. Respawn says Emerald should reduce the bottleneck many players feel when climbing into Diamond.
Grandmaster sits above Masters and represents the top of the progression. The Predator badge will go to the top 750 Grandmaster players at season end. That changes the current structure where Predator is the apex tier. Under the new system, Grandmaster is the top rank, and Predator becomes an end-of-season badge within it.
The current Ranked system treats all players in one ladder from Rookie to Predator with the same scoring model. The Season 32 replacement creates two formal tracks. Open League contains the lower ranks and starts every match in the Dropship. Pro-Am League contains Diamond, Masters, and Grandmaster and is where Drop Zone deployment and Legend Banning live. Masters also gets four divisions in the new structure.
Platinum and Diamond currently share a ladder but have different entry costs. Next year they will be in different leagues with different scoring priorities. Open League will weight kills slightly higher than placement. Pro-Am League will weight placement higher than kills. That weighting matches the ALGS scoring shape for top play.
Season 32 Scoring Flattening and Entry Cost Granularity
Respawn is removing the current kill scaling multiplier tied to final placement. In the current system, kill RP can become much more valuable if a squad survives longer, which encourages aggressive hot drops followed by holding kills through rotations. Starting in Season 32, each kill is worth a set amount of RP and each placement is worth a set amount of RP, with no placement multiplier.
Team kills also replace individual kills and assists. Every kill your squad gets gives you full kill RP regardless of your contribution. Assists and participations are removed. This shifts individual reward toward team success and simplifies the scoring math. A support player who heals or revives during fights gets the same kill credit as the fragger.
Entry costs will increase by division instead of by tier. The current system creates hard walls at tier boundaries, especially Diamond, where the entry cost jump makes it much harder to stay positive. The new granular increases make progression difficulty rise gradually within each tier. Respawn says finer entry-cost steps separate players by division as well as by tier, giving a clearer skill measure.
Ranked Rewards Are Confirmed in Concept Only
Respawn listed several Season 32 reward changes: new Seasonal Auras, new ways to use Auras, a revisit of Ranked Dive Trails, Epic and Legendary Apex Packs, and rewards on promotion so players do not wait until end of season. That is the full set of confirmed reward directions.
The roadmap is intentionally light on specifics for Season 32 rewards. Respawn said it will share more details and visuals closer to Season 32’s launch. It names the reward categories but gives no counts, previews, or schedule.
Weekly Ladders are also going away in Season 32. Respawn said it is reimagining limited-time competition and will discuss the replacement next year.
