Competitive Play

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Compete against other players and work your way up the ranks.

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Competitive Play is the ranked playlist of Overwatch and Overwatch 2. Players must win 50 Quick Play matches or have owned Overwatch since before June of 2021 to unlock Competitive Play. In Competitive Play, players receive a rank representing their skill level, ranging from Bronze to the Top 500. As Competitive is meant to be a slightly more serious play mode, it features slightly altered rule sets for competitive matches and imposes some grouping restrictions for more fair and balanced gameplay. ^[1]

Game modes[ | ]

Permanent modes[ | ]

Competitive playlist features two permanent game modes: Competitive Play Role Queue and Competitive Play Open Queue.

Role Queue imposes a team composition 1 Tank, 2 Damage, and 2 Support heroes. Players must select a role they wish to play as in a match. Once a match has been found, they are only allowed to pick heroes in the role they selected for the entire match.
Open Queue does not restrict a team to have a specific number of heroes from each role. Players can select a hero from any role and are allowed to switch roles during the match.

Open Queue ranking give the players 1 rank, whereas Role Queue gives players 3.

Temporary modes[ | ]

The playlist also features temporary game modes, such as Arcade-based modes available in a competitive setting. Temporary games modes are usually available for the latter half of the season, but may also stay longer.

Competitive Arcade modes[ | ]

Starting with Copa Lùcioball, introduced with the Summer Games 2017 event, Blizzard has sporadically added Competitive Arcade modes. The rewards for Competitive Arcade modes differ from those from the regular Competitive Play mode. As the seasons are shorter (as well as the matches duration), you earn fewer Competitive Points per match.

Following Arcade modes have been featured in Competitive play:

Lúcioball
Capture the Flag
Elimination (6v6 and 3v3 Group)
Deathmatch (8 player FFA and Team Deathmatch)

Mystery Heroes[ | ]

Competitive Mystery Heroes was available during Seasons 3, 5, and 6 in Overwatch 2.

The rewards for game wins and the end of the season for Competitive Mystery Heroes are slightly lower than the Role Queue and Open Queue Competitive rewards. However, it is possible to earn both end of season rewards for Competitive Mystery Heroes and standard Competitive rewards in the same season.

Team Queue[ | ]

Team Queue is a temporary competitive mode for Overwatch 2, requiring everyone to play in a full group of five players. Team Queue has no ranking restrictions. Other important rules for the mode are:

Players can group up regardless of how far apart they are in rank.
Grandmaster players can play, even with up to four other Grandmaster players.
Team Queue is limited to 1 Tank, 2 Damage, and 2 Support.
Players do not queue for specific roles, instead choosing their roles within each match.
Platform pool restrictions remain, meaning players on console must still only group up with other players on console, not those on PC.

Team Queue first became available in Season 5 mid-season patch to be available through the end of Season 5.

Competitive ruleset[ | ]

Competitive Play has a different ruleset for Escort, Hybrid and Push maps. Control and Flashpoint have the same ruleset in Quick Play and Competitive Play.

Push[ | ]

Match time is increased from 8 to 10 minutes.

Escort[ | ]

Minimum of 2 rounds are played, with both teams playing an attack and a defence. Whichever team gets farther on their attack will win the match.
If both teams manage to move the payload the exact same distance without reaching the final destination or fail to move it at all, the match ends in a draw.
- The distance has to be equal to the centimeter, so this very rarely happens.
If both teams push the payload until the end, the match will proceed to extra rounds, following the time bank rules (See Below).

Hybrid[ | ]

Minimum of 2 rounds are played, with both teams playing an attack and a defence. The attacking team which captures the most of the point and / or escorts the payload the farthest wins.
If both teams fail to reach the first tick (1/3) on the capture point or manage to move the payload the exact same distance without reaching the destination, the match ends in a draw.
- If the capture point progress is between 33.3% (1st tick) and 100%, it is not possible for the game to end in a draw.
- Like Escort, the payload distance has to be equal to the centimeter for a draw to happen.
If both teams capture the point, and push the payload until the end, the match will proceed to extra rounds, following the time bank rules (See Below).

Extra Rounds & Time Bank[ | ]

If both teams reach the final destination in their initial attacking round in a Hybrid or Escort map, the match will proceed to extra rounds, where attack and defense rotation will start using the time bank system and no additional time will be added after capturing a checkpoint. Whenever a new rotation starts, the team with the smaller remaining time starts the next rotation on attack, and the time banks are adjusted based on the remaining time for both teams:

If both teams have 120 seconds or more left, the team with the smaller amount of remaining time has their time decreased to 120 seconds and the other team's remaining time is decreased the same amount.
- E.g. team A has 165 seconds and team B has 250 seconds after the initial rounds, team A's time bank is reduced by 45 seconds for a remaining total of 120 seconds, and team B's time bank is also reduced by 45 seconds for a remaining total of 205 seconds.
If the team with lower time remaining has between 60 seconds and 119 seconds left, no changes are made to either team's time bank.
If the team with lower time remaining has between 0.1 seconds and 59.9 seconds left, their remaining time is increased to 60 seconds and the team with higher remaining time is increased by the same amount.
- E.g. team A has 20 seconds and team B has 150 seconds after the initial rounds, team A's time bank is increased by 40 seconds for a total of 60 seconds, while team B's time bank is also increased by 40 seconds for a total of 190 seconds.
Hybrid only: If one team has no time left and opposing team team has 60 seconds or more left, no changes are made to either team's time bank and only the team with time left will proceed to play an attacking round. If they reach at least 33.3% progress (1st tick) on the first capture point with their remaining time, they win. If they do not, the match results in a draw.
If one of the teams has no time left and the previous does not apply, both teams are given an additional 60 seconds.

Ranks[ | ]

Ranks are used to represent players' performance compared to other players in Competitive play. A player's rank is not used for matchmaking, however it closely matches their internal matchmaking rating.^[2]^[3] Players have a separate rank for Open Queue and for each role in Role Queue.

Skill tiers & divisions[ | ]

The ranked system is split in tiers, and each tier in divisions.^[4] Additionally, the players position within each division is displayed as a percentage. Players can view their current skill tier and division through their Career Profile, or the Competitive Progress option in the Competitive Play menu.

Excluding Top 500, there are 5 divisions in each tier, with 1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest. The skill tiers from top to bottom are:

Top 500
Champion 5 - 1
Grandmaster 5 - 1
Master 5 - 1
Diamond 5 - 1
Platinum 5 - 1
Gold 5 - 1
Silver 5 - 1
Bronze 5 - 1

The Top 500 rank is given to players that have the 1st to 500th highest rating in their respective region (Americas. Asia, Europe) and platform (PC, PS4, XBox, Switch), and can be granted regardless of the player's actual skill tier and division. Top 500 only becomes available two weeks after the start of a season, and the player must have won at least 50 competitive matches in the current season to be eligible. Blizzard SMS Protect must also be enabled for PC players. The current Top 500 can be viewed in the leaderboard, which can be accessed through the Competitive Play menu.

Placement matches[ | ]

In Season 9, the player must complete a set of 10 placements matches in order to gain a rank. Unlike previous seasons, it is not necessary to win these matches to progress the counter. The player's predicted rank is shown after each placement match before they gain their real rank.^[5]

Rank updates[ | ]

Players' ranks will update after every match. The rank updates are communicated to the players via the Rank Information screen, which displays how much their position in the division changed as a percentage, visualized by a progress bar towards the next division. Generally, players will gain rank progress whenever they win the match and lose progress whenever they lose. Rank Information also details what factors affected the amount of progress from the match with Rank Modifiers. Modifiers that have a positive effect, ie. cause the player to gain rank progress more upon win or lose less upon loss, are displayed with a green arrow to the right and ones with negative effect with a red arrow to the left.

Below is a list of the possible modifiers.

Rank modifiers
Modifier	Effect	Description
Winning Trend		Bonus for high win rate.
Losing Trend		Penalty for high loss rate.
Consolation		You weren't favored^{[Note 1]} and you lost.
Reversal		You were favored but you lost.
Uphill Battle		You weren't favored but you won.
Expected		You were favored and you won.
Calibration		Your rank is uncertain.
Demotion		You lost a match while in Demotion Protection.^{[Note 2]}
Demotion Protection		If you lose again you will rank down.
Wide		Your group is wide so you gained or lost less rank.
Pressure		You were pushed toward average at a high or low rank.
Notes: ↑ Favored – Whether a team is "favored" is based on the teams' average ranks prior to the game, with the higher ranked team being considered favored. ↑ Demotion Protection - See below

Demotion Protection[ | ]

When player's Rank Progress would go below 0% and they would be demoted to a lower division, they will be put in "Demotion Protection", and instead of immediately ranking down a division, they will gain another chance and only rank down if they lose another match while in Demotion Protection.

When player enters Demotion Protection, the amount of Rank Progress that would go below 0% is not discarded, but will be saved and taken into account in the next rank update. Players can see this as negative Rank Progress in the Rank Update screen. If the player loses and is demoted, the next rank update will display this amount with a black bar, whereas the amount lost from the current match is displayed normally.

To leave Demotion Protection while retaining their current division, the player must again get their Rank Progress above 0%. In other words, if the player wins while in Demotion Protection, but does not gain enough rank progress to go back above 0%, they will remain in Demotion Protection for another match.

Inactivity[ | ]

Players that did not play any matches during the previous competitive season will become Inactive. Inactive players do not have a visible Skill Tier and Division. Each role in Role Queue can become Inactive separately, while in Open Queue, a player only has one rank that can become Inactive. Once an Inactive player returns and achieves a Competitive Update after winning five games, their Skill Tier and Division will become visible again.

Distribution[ | ]

The current rank distribution is unknown due to the rank reset and addition of Champion rank brought by Season 9 Competitive Play updates.

To the previous knowledge, a graph showing the distribution of PC players in Competitive was revealed in a blog post at the time of Season 5.^[6] Approximating from the graph the percentage of players at each rank was:

Season 5 rank distribution
Rank	Of total	Percentile
Grandmaster	1.5 %	98.5 ... 100 %
Master	3.9 %	94.6 ... 98.5 %
Diamond	12.3 %	82.3 ... 94.6 %
Platinum	26.2 %	56.1 ... 82.3 %
Gold	26.8 %	29.3 ... 56.1 %
Silver	19.1 %	10.2 ... 29.3 %
Bronze	10.2 %	0 ... 10.2 %

Groups in Competitive Play[ | ]

S10 Competitive Grouping — Competitive Wide Groups By Rank

Players are allowed to participate in Competitive Play as a group of any size and range of ranks, with some exceptions and tradeoffs. Groups are sorted into two categories: Wide groups and Narrow groups. Wide Groups are classified as groups with large rank disparity, while narrow groups are everything else. For Matchmaking, wide groups and narrow groups are matched separately, with solo queuers only ever being matched with narrow groups.

Wide Groups[ | ]

Wide groups were introduced to allow friends who are ranks apart to play Competitive together. As such, wide groups consist of players with fairly large rank disparity. For Matchmaking, wide groups will only be matched against other wide groups and will still utilize Overwatch 2's Role Delta Tech to try match groups with similarly shaped groups to try keep gameplay as fair as possible^[7]. Wide groups will receive the "Wide" modifier after each game to represent the decreased change in rank progress. Players will be informed prior to the match if the configuration of roles they have selected would result in a wide group.^[8]

The following table describes what is considered a Wide Group at each rank.

Competitive Wide Groups
Rank(s)	Wide Group
Bronze Silver Gold Platinum Diamond	Highest and lowest ranked players are more than 5 Divisions apart.
Master Grandmaster	Highest and lowest ranked players are more than 3 Divisions apart.
Champion	Highest and lowest ranked players are more than 1 Division apart.

The existence of wide groups results in a few tradeoffs: ^[8]

Wide Groups have increased queue times and reduced match quality because it’s more difficult to find another group of players with the same ranks in the same roles to match against.
Wide Groups of 4 players are unable to queue to ensure solo players never have to play a Wide Match.
The wider your group, the less your Rank Progress will change with each win or loss.

Narrow Groups[ | ]

A group is a narrow group when players in the group have little rank disparity, all being fairly close in rank. In other words, any group that does not fit the aforementioned wide group criteria is considered narrow. Narrow groups will be matched with other narrow groups and solo queuers.^[7]

Penalties[ | ]

Main article: Penalties#Leaver Penalties

As this mode exists to players wanting a more serious experience of Overwatch, harsher penalties are given to players who abandon their team before the end of the match. As opposed to Quick Play, players who exit a match from Competitive Play prematurely will not be able to join another game of any play mode until their original match is concluded, and departed players will not be backfilled. Players that fail to rejoin their match before it ends will automatically gain a loss, and have their future placement ranking lowered, as well as a temporary suspension from Competitive Play, with repeated offenses extending the duration of the suspension until an eventual permanent ban from the game mode. As such, it is ill-advised to play comp when you are short on time, or have a poor connection to the game.

Rewards[ | ]

Competitive Points[ | ]

Main article: Competitive Points

Players can earn Competitive Points completing matches in Competitive Play: Each player is awarded 10 Competitive Points for a win, 5 for a draw or none for a loss. Additionally, each match completed fills the Competitive Progress meter, granting triple progress for wins. After completing 30 matches, the player gains an additional 100 Competitive Points.

Competitive Weapon Variants[ | ]

Main article: Weapon Variants

Season 9 introduced a new competitive reward system in which competitive seasons that span over a year will feature unique weapon variants that can be purchased with Competitive Points. At the end of the competitive season, the remaining Competitive Points are converted to Legacy Competitive Points and can be used to purchase weapons variants from previous seasons, such as Golden weapons. The 2024 season runs from February 2024 to January 2025, and features Jade weapon variants, as the competitive reward.

Competitive Titles[ | ]

At the end of every regular season, the players ranked Gold and above gain a Player Title according to their skill tier at the end. Players can receive a competitive title for each role in the Role Queue as well as one for the Open Queue. Competitive titles can be used until the end of the season, after which they are replaced by the new reward title or removed, if the player has dropped below Gold rank.

History[ | ]

The mode has gone through extensive reworks since its launch, and was further revamped 2 times in Overwatch 2.