# Deadlock Matchmaking Update

- Product: Deadlock (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/deadlock)
- Vendor: Valve
- Date: 2026-07-30
- Original notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1422450/view/680756685198854910
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/deadlock/releases/2026-07-30-matchmaking-update

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

---

- **added** — Introduce Ranked Mode for competitive matchmaking against similarly-skilled players
- **added** — Introduce Standard Mode for lower-stakes unranked play without rank adjustments
- **added** — Add new rank system with 11 rank tiers (Initiate through Eternus), each containing 6 subranks
- **added** — Add Ranked seasons with the first season ending on October 7th
- **added** — Add Ranked Hub in the hideout displaying current and past ranked seasons, global leaderboards, and rank history
- **added** — Add commemorative items in the hideout for highest rank achievement at end of season
- **added** — Add rank points system where wins or losses grant approximately +/- 250 points, with 1000 points needed for subrank promotion and 2000 points for rank promotion
- **added** — Add rank loss protection with 5 games of protection at full rank boundaries and 2 games at subrank boundaries
- **added** — Add hero selection in pre-game phase before match formation in Ranked Mode
- **added** — Add ability to change hero selection in new pre-game phase
- **changed** — Matchmaker now adjusts games based on player experience with selected heroes in Standard Mode
- **changed** — Improve matchmaker ability to create balanced team compositions
- **changed** — Implement hero selection before match formation to allow matchmaker to optimize hero preferences and team composition
- **added** — Require minimum of 60 wins in Standard Mode to queue for Ranked Mode
- **added** — Require minimum of 15 wins with a hero in Standard Mode to pick that hero in Ranked Mode
- **added** — Require minimum of 3 heroes unlocked to queue for Ranked Mode
- **added** — Restrict Ranked Mode to solo or duo parties with maximum 1 rank difference between players, except Eternus players who must be within 3 subranks
- **added** — Implement 8-game calibration phase at start of Ranked season with soft rank reset maintaining prior performance history
- **added** — Cap calibration phase exit at maximum rank of Oracle VI
- **added** — Prohibit party grouping during calibration matches

This update includes a revamp to how the matchmaking system works, as well as the introduction of a new matchmaking mode. You can now choose to play in Standard Mode (unranked), or the new Ranked Mode introduced in this update.

**STANDARD MODE**
Standard mode provides a lower-stakes way to play Deadlock with friends, without worrying about adjustments your Rank. There are no restrictions on party size or skill spread. You can also play in this mode to practice heroes you are less familiar with, as the matchmaker will adjust the game it puts you in to account for your experience with that hero.

**RANKED MODE**
Ranked mode gives players a way to queue up for more competitive games against similarly-skilled players with higher stakes. Each season you'll be able to climb the Ranks and see how far you can go.

**UPDATED RANKS & BADGES: **
_Each Rank has 6 Subranks within (I - VI)._

Obscurus (uncalibrated)
- Initiate
Seeker
Acolyte
Sentinel
Mystic
Ritualist
Emissary
Oracle
- Phantom
Ascendant
Eternus

**ELIGIBILITY AND SEASONS:**
To be eligible to queue for Ranked Mode, you must have at least 60 wins in the Standard Mode. To ensure higher quality games, Ranked Mode expects that you have a solid understanding of the heroes you play in it, so the mode only allows you to pick heroes that you have won at least 15 games with in Standard Mode. You must have at least 3 heroes unlocked for Ranked to be able to have a valid sized roster to queue with.

Ranked Mode has seasons, with the first season starting today and ending on October 7th, after which the following season will begin. At the conclusion of a season, the highest Rank you achieved will be permanently saved in your Rank history page. Future Rank seasons will likely have longer durations with splits in between (breaks within the season where Rank adjustments are made) as well as recency requirements on the heroes played.

As the season starts, everyone will enter a calibration phase for 8 games. All players will have a soft reset of their prior Rank, maintaining some history of your previous performance relative to other players to help seed you initially into the calibration games. Players can only exit calibration at a max Rank of Oracle VI. You cannot be in a party during calibration matches.

Ranked Mode will currently only allow for solo or duo parties. If you are in a duo party, both players must be at most 1 Rank away from each other (i.e. Mystic and Ritualist). However, Eternus players can only queue with another Eternus player as long as they are within 3 Subranks of each other. We recognize that the party size and rank spread limits might be too restrictive, but we wanted to start off this way and then adjust in the future as needed.

A new Ranked Hub in the hideout includes all the information about the current and past Ranked seasons going forward, and allows you to access global leaderboards and your Rank history. You'll have an item in the hideout to commemorate your seasons highest rank achievement when the season is over.

**RANK POINTS:**
When you win or lose a game, you will see your Rank Points update with a visible progress bar after each match. Each win/loss will grant you +/- 250 points on average, though these numbers could vary slightly depending on the expectations the matchmaker had from that game or while on win streaks. To progress to the next Subrank, you need to collect 1000 Rank Points for each promotion. However, the final Subrank before moving to a new Rank (ie. Mystic VI ->Ritualist I) requires 2000 points. Once you reach Eternus I, there will no longer be a fixed amount of points needed to progress from one Subrank to the other as the thresholds will be dynamically updated daily to segment the Subranks on a percentile basis.

There is also Rank loss protection when playing in Ranked. You have 5 games of loss protection when on the boundary of a full Rank (So if you are at Mystic I with 0 Rank points, you will maintain the Mystic badge until yo

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1422450/view/680756685198854910]_