APEX Legends offers ranked leagues for players who want more than a casual match against a wide variety of opponents. In these, your achievements and skills help you reach tier after tier while playing with and against players of similar talent.
Understanding how ranking up, playing in leagues, and progressing works is a great way to propel yourself to the top.
Who Can Play in Ranked Leagues?
The good news is that you don’t have to have a lot of experience or well-developed skills to start playing in ranked matches. All you need to do is be level 20 in the game.
You can earn levels just from playing in any available matches alone or with a team.
There’s a unique league for new players to the ranked competitive matches. It’s called the Rookie Tier; you can never return once you’ve left it.
All new players are assigned to it while they get the first points of their new journeys. Once you’ve earned 1000 rank points, you’re promoted to Bronze.
You get your promotions with the following rank points.
- You attain Silver Rank with 3000 rank points.
- You attain Gold Rank with 5400 rank points.
- You attain Platinum Rank with 8200 rank points.
- You attain Diamond Rank with 11400 rank points.
- You attain Master Rank with 15000 rank points.
There is also a rank called Apex Predator that you can’t reach with rank points. It’s given to the top 750 players on each platform – so each console and PC will have its own set of Apex Predator players.
How to Gain APEX Rank Points?
You gain and lose APEX Rank points each match – meaning you can end up with a net negative at the end of a game. This is because ranked matches charge a rank point fee to play.
The fee starts at 15 rank points per match and goes as high as 175 rank points for Master and APEX Predator games, a price that escalates depending on how many rank points the players have. There is no fee for people in Rookie League.
You gain rank points by being near the top of the match, getting kills and assists, and your team getting kills and assists.
The number of points varies depending on your rank. For example, a person ranked number one in the match will get 125 rank points for the placement and 25 points per kill or assist.
Meanwhile, someone ranked 14 or lower would get zero placement points and one point per kill or assist.
Each one pays a bit less as you get more kills and assist. So a person who places first won’t get 200 points for their placement. They’ll earn 125, 25 for the first kill, and fewer rank points for each one after.
If your team finishes in 15th place with six kills and you’re ranked Platinum I, you’ve paid a 60-point entry fee and earned 6 points. You’d end up losing 54 points.
How Do I Join Ranked Games?
In the main menu, choose the button to adjust your match settings. As long as you can access ranked games, you can click on the correct tile and queue for the match like any other game.
You can join games in leagues you aren’t in by partying up with friends.
However, once someone in your party reaches the platinum league, that person can only play with people one rank higher or lower.
So Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Apex Predators are limited in who they can party up with in ranked leagues.
Ranked Splits
APEX ranked leagues don’t only reset once per season. Seasons are divided into what are called ranked splits.
This means that ranks undergo a soft reset halfway through the season, and people are sorted a bit differently.
People in the highest levels get rewards at the mid-season and the end of the season when ranks are reset.
Ranked Arenas
Ranked Arenas are entirely separate from normal APEX ranked leagues played in Battle Royale. How you move up and down in leagues is also slightly different. For starters, the first ten matches you play determine your initial rank.
The system isn’t completely based on your rank points for your skill level. A matchmaking rating is also assigned to you, though you won’t know what it is.
Respawn explains that they want to use it to adjust people’s rankings quickly. To do so, a person with a higher MMR might match with people of higher ratings because they are playing at a similar skill level.
This matchmaking system helps you go from one tier to the next based on your current performance much faster than you can in the ranked leagues of battle royale.
People can always get rank demotions quickly. Rewards are based on the highest tier you achieved during the season and not where you are at the end.
