The Deadlock Ranked Mode Expained (One Queue)

As of the November 21st patch, there is now only ONE queue so all games are ranked.

Here are the important parts you need to know:

[ Matchmaking Rework ]

- This update includes a new version of the matchmaker. The matchmaking pools are no longer split between normal and ranked, there is only one primary matchmaking mode and there are no limited hours.

- Badges will update immediately whenever you gain or lose enough MMR to change badges. You no longer have to wait a week or play a certain game count. There will sometimes be monthly global maintenance updates where we readjust the global curve based on the population, cheaters banned, recalculation adjustments, etc (this will be done as needed and not necessarily every month).

- Hero MMR is now used in the Matchmaker. Each player will have a "core" MMR and your MMR per hero will be offsets of your core MMR. When you queue, we will match you based on that hero's MMR. So if you are unfamiliar or play worse with a given hero, you will be put in an easier match than your usual. Judgement on your skill and familiarity with a hero will be based on the 20 most recent games with that hero. In your profile, we have UI that shows you what the matchmaker thinks your relative ranking for each hero is (give us feedback on this, we expect to iterate on this calculation).

- Leaderboards are also included per region (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania). There is a top 1000 Core MMR leaderboard as well as a top 1000 Hero MMR leaderboard for each hero (for each region separately). To qualify for being considered in leaderboards in general, you must have 50 games played in the last 30 days. To qualify for a specific hero's leaderboard, you must have played at least 20 games on that hero in the past 30 days.

- You can queue as any party size, however there are a few details. If the range of skill in your party is too wide, the amount of MMR you can gain will be reduced somewhat based on the degree. This is especially true if it’s a player we don't know anything about (like a very high mmr player queuing with a "new" player, we will minimize updates to the known player until we are more confident we can trust the skill of that party overall).

- The previous limit on high MMR party sizes is increased from 2 to 3. This applies to Ascendant 1 and above. This is the old limit we had on disallowing too many high MMR players to be in the same party together, for matchmaking quality reasons.

- Given the updated no hour limits, if we think a match is a bad quality (like 5am games where there weren't a lot of players to pick from), we will weigh the match less heavily towards a rank update relative to what we would do with an average quality match.

- If you prefer playing with only solos, there is a convar (mm_prefer_solo_only) you can use.

- When queuing as a party, you will have an option to override the default balance oriented lane assignment system and make the system prioritize putting your party members in the same lanes together.

- Added Swap Lanes feature. During the rooftop and zipline phase at the start of the game, you can now request to swap lanes with your teammates by clicking the button below their portrait on the scoreboard. If the other player accepts your request, you will immediately be swapped. You may decline an incoming request by right clicking it.

- There is an option to notify you anytime your rank levels up. There is also an option to show the average badge of each team for the post game.

The Previous Ranked Mode

NOTE: Since it's currently unknown whether or not Valve will revert the current one queue model back to separate queues for Normals and Ranked, we'll leave the section below intact for reference.

On October 15th 2024, the highly-anticipated Ranked mode was added to the Deadlock alpha test.

The mode is in its experimental phase, so it's only available at certain times of day.

In this guide, we'll cover how Deadlock's ranked mode works, and what you need to get access to it.

What You Need to Play Ranked

To play Deadlock's ranked mode, there are four requirements:

1. 50 games played (helps to ensure that the participants are somewhat experienced and not completely new)

2. Have a good behavior standing (no bans, abuse of the report system, and so on)

3. Must be queueing solo

4. Availability during the designated time windows

When Can You Play Ranked?

When the ranked mode first launched, you could only play from 1pm-4pm and 7pm-10pm every day within your timezone.

However, in the October 18th patch, the Ranked mode hours were changed to:

• Monday to Friday = 4pm-10pm

• Saturday to Sunday = 11am-10pm

What are the Deadlock Ranks?

There are 11 medals with 6 sublevels within each medal - they are:

• Initiate

• Seeker

• Alchemist

• Arcanist

• Ritualist

• Emissary

• Archon

• Oracle

• Phantom

• Ascendant

• Eternus

So as of now, Initiate I would be the lowest possible rank while Eternus ✶ is the highest.

When you play a ranked game, you will only play against players that have the same medal level as you.

Every Tuesday @8PM GMT, your medal rank is updated (you must have played at least 7 games to be eligible for that week).

Is there a Ranked Leaderboard?

As of right now, there is NO ranked leaderboard in Deadlock but it's bound to be added in the future.