Marvel Rivals offers a structured ranked mode that allows players to climb through ranks, test their skills, and unlock exclusive rewards. To participate, players must first unlock the competitive mode by reaching Account Level 10, which generally takes about 25-40 quick matches. Once unlocked, you will start at Bronze like everyone else that begins to play ranked and climb from there.

Rank Structure and Progression

The ranked system consists of eight tiers, each with divisions (except the top two ranks), and operates on a points-based system:

1. Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Grandmaster: Each has three to five subdivisions (for example, Gold III to Gold I). Players must earn 100 points to progress between subdivisions.
2. Eternity and One Above All: These elite ranks use a performance-based leaderboard instead of subdivisions. Only the top 500 players globally achieve the prestigious One Above All. These players are also usually the ones that are scouted out and taken by pro teams or form teams themselves to play into Tournaments or prepare for a possible esports scene.

Promotion and Demotion Mechanics

• Rank Points: Points are earned for victories and deducted for losses. Players can gain additional points by winning matches against teams with higher ranked players like for example if you are a gold player and win against a platinum team.
• Chrono Shield: Acts as a safety net, preventing immediate demotion when points fall below the threshold of a division's lowest tier, making it more difficult to fall back out of a rank, making it easier to climb than in games like Overwatch.
• Rank Decay: At Eternity and above, inactivity results in a loss of points to ensure high activity, this decay system is common practice in a lot of games with a competitive side.

Unique Features of Ranked Play

1. Hero Bans: From Diamond III and above, each team bans one hero per match, adding a strategic layer and making the games more balanced by banning heroes that are considered OP.
2. Grouping Restrictions: Players can only queue with teammates whose ranks are within one tier. Bronze and Silver are treated as one tier for this purpose. You can queue as duo, trio and teams of four. However, you can also team up as a full stack of six but you cannot queue as 5 for whatever reason.
3. Game Modes: Ranked matches follow the same rules as Quick Match but include specific Escort-style maps where teams alternate between attacking and defending. This means that unlike the Quick Play matches where delivering the payload wins you the game, in Ranked, you have to both defend and attack.

Tips and Strategies to Climb the Ladder

1. Master Core Heroes: Focus on a few characters and fully understand their strengths, weaknesses, and role in a team. Hawkeye, Hela, Doctor Strange, Venom, The Punisher and Jeff alongside Rocket are top tier heroes you should consider learning first as they are considered top performing heroes.
2. Team Ups: Learning team-ups between heroes is important. Especially teamups like the one between Hulk and Iron Man where the Iron Man Armor Overdrive is boosted, increasing the duration of the Unibeam. You can learn the Team-ups by clicking on the Team Ups tab under Heroes at the top of the screen.
3. Effective Communication: Use in-game chat for team coordination as the game has voice chat (default key: `).
4. Manage Tilt and Take Breaks: If you’re on a losing streak, step away for a bit. Playing while frustrated can lead to more mistakes and lost matches, even 30 minutes breaks are great for your mental.
5. Master Counter-Picking: At higher ranks, hero bans and selections become crucial. For example Iron Man is easily countered by hitscan heroes like The Punisher and Hela.

Rewards and Incentives

Ranked play offers season-based rewards that reflect your final standing:

• Bronze to Silver: You don’t get anything for these ranks as they are considered starting ranks. However, this is the perfect time for you to learn heroes and improve after playing a bit of quick play, getting a good feel for the heroes and the way the game plays in ranked. However, for top performing players, these ranks can be frustrating as the players aren’t usually good.
• Gold and Above: Unique skins, such as the coveted “Golden Moonlight” Moon Knight skin from Season 0.
• Grandmaster to One Above All: Exclusive rewards like Silver Crest of Honor which can be shown on the name card in game. However, players reaching One Above All will get the Gold version.

Conclusion

Marvel Rivals’ ranked system rewards consistency and skill. KDA also matters in Marvel Rivals, surprisingly or not, how well you play as an individual player can affect how many points you win or lose through a match. Getting 1 kill and dying 20 times in a match will greatly affect the amount of points you lose if you lose the match and minimize the points you gain if you win. This ensures that the good players climb quicker than others.