Competitive Play

Competitive Play

Competitive Play is the ranked playlist of Overwatch and Overwatch 2. The mode has gone through extensive reworks since its launch, and was further revamped 2 times in Overwatch 2.

Description

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

Competitive Play is a ranked version of Quick Play in which players are awarded with a rank for repeated wins, and lose ranks for repeated loses. Competitive matches have altered rule sets, generally resulting in them lasting longer.

Players are matched with others of a similar skill level for more fair and balanced matchmaking. Players receive a rank from Bronze to the Top 500 which details how skilled they are at the game. There are different rules depending on rank for group size and which ranks can play with which. Players must win 50 Quick Play matches to play competitive, or have owned Overwatch since before June of 2021.

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.

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.

Seasonal modes

Seasonal modes are temporary game modes in Competitive Play. They 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 and for your final rank at the end of the season.

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 and Hybrid maps. Control, Push and Flashpoint have the same ruleset in Quick Play and Competitive Play.

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, 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. 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. 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.

Rank updates

Explanation of rank modifiers.

Players will receive a rank update after every match. The update displays how much the player's position in the division changes as a percentage, visualized by a progress bar towards the next division. Additionally, the update displays, which modifiers affected the amount of progress gained from the 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

Rank distribution in Season 5 in Overwatch 2. Each horizontal line represents 2%.

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. 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

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.

Competitive Wide Groups

Bronze , Silver , Gold , Platinum , Diamond

• Group is considered wide if the highest and lowest ranked players are more than 5 divisions apart.

Master

• Group is considered wide if the highest and lowest ranked players are more than 3 divisions apart.

Grandmaster Champion

• All groups with Grandmaster or Champion players are wide.

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. 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.

The existence of wide groups results in a few tradeoffs:

• 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

Group is a narrow groups when players in the group have little rank disparity, all being fairly close in rank. Narrow groups will be matched with other narrow groups and solo queuers.

Old Restrictions

Prior to Season 10, these were the previous grouping restrictions that had been in effect since Overwatch 2 released.

• Groups may only queue if all players in the group are within a certain range
  • Players ranked Diamond and below can only group within 2 skill tiers (10 divisions) of each other.
    • For example, a Bronze 5 player cannot play with a Gold 4 player.
  • Master players may only group within 1 skill tier (5 divisions).
  • Grandmaster and Champion players can only group within 3 divisions.
• Champion players may only queue solo or in a group consisting of two players.
• Players who have not completed their placement matches are unable to group with players ranked Diamond or higher.

Penalties

As this mode exists to players wanting a more serious experience of Overwatch, harsher punishments 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. Only one player title is awarded per competititive mode. This means that players can earn a title for open queue an role queue, but not for different roles in role queue. For role queue the player is only granted the title based on the highest rank of the three roles. 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.

List of Competitive Play Seasons

Overwatch 1
Season	Start Date	End Date	Notes
1	Jun 28, 2016	Aug 17, 2016	Had a 1-100 Skill Rating scale and a Sudden Death system if both teams reached their objective in the initial attack and defense rotation. During Sudden Death, one additional round was played where the attacking team was chosen by a coin flip. The attackers had to capture or escort the payload to the first point within 1 minute and 45 seconds. If they succeeded, the attacking team won the match. If they failed, the defending team won.
2	Sep 02, 2016	Nov 24, 2016	1-100 Skill Rating scale expanded to a 1-5000 scale. Sudden Death system replaced by the Time Bank system.
3	Dec 01, 2016	Feb 21, 2017	No Changes
4	Feb 28, 2017	May 28, 2017
5	Jun 1, 2017	Aug 28, 2017
6	Sep 1, 2017	Oct 28, 2017	Control map rounds reduced from a best-of-five to a best-of-three. Duration of each competitive season reduced from three months to two months.
7	Nov 1, 2017	Dec 29, 2017	No Changes
8	Jan 1, 2018	Feb 25, 2018
9	Feb 28, 2018	Apr 28, 2018
10	May 1, 2018	Jul 1, 2018
11	Jul 02, 2018	Aug 28, 2018
12	Aug 31, 2018	Oct 28, 2018
13	Nov 1, 2018	Jan 1, 2019	Off-season duration reduced from three days to two hours.
14	Jan 1, 2019	Mar 1, 2019	No Changes
15	Mar 1, 2019	May 1, 2019	Off-season removed. Henceforth the following season will begin immediately after the previous season ends.
16	May 1, 2019	Jun 30, 2019	No Changes
17	Jun 30, 2019	Aug 13, 2019	Ended two weeks early to implement a special three week season of Competitive Play that introduced the Role Queue system. Referred to as "Role Queue Beta" in player profiles to those that participated.
18	Sep 3, 2019	Nov 7, 2019	Role Queue system implemented with players having independent Skill Ratings for each of the three roles. Number of placement matches required decreased from 10 to 5.
19	Nov 9, 2019	Jan 2, 2020	Map pool system introduced. Each season had a specific selection of maps and only those maps were available for the entirety of the season. Map pool: Assault: Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, Volskaya Industries Escort: Dorado, Havana, Watchpoint: Gibraltar Hybrid: Eichenwalde, Hollywood, King's Row Control: Busan, Lijiang Tower, Nepal
20	Jan 2, 2020	Mar 5, 2020	Map pool: Assault: Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, Volskaya Industries Escort: Dorado, Havana, Rialto Hybrid: Eichenwalde, King's Row, Numbani Control: Busan, Ilios, Oasis
21	Mar 5, 2020	May 7, 2020	Hero bans introduced, changing weekly. Banned heroes were chosen based on hero usage across all ranks. Map pools were removed on April 14th, 2020. Horizon Lunar Colony and Paris were removed from Competitive Play on the same day. Map pool (until April 14th): Assault: Hanamura, Horizon Lunar Colony, Volskaya Industries Escort: Dorado, Junkertown, Watchpoint: Gibraltar Hybrid: Blizzard World, Hollywood, King's Row Control: Busan, Lijang Tower, Oasis Hero bans: Mar 5 - Mar 12: Orisa, Hanzo, Mei, Baptiste Mar 12 - Mar 19: Reinhardt, Reaper, Ana, Moira Mar 19 - Mar 26: Roadhog, Sigma, Doomfist, Brigitte Mar 26 - Apr 2: D.Va, Cassidy, Soldier: 76, Sombra, Widowmaker, Baptiste Apr 2 - Apr 9: Wrecking Ball, Hanzo, Mercy Apr 9 - Apr 13: Zarya, Pharah, Symmetra, Lúcio Apr 13 - Apr 19: Reinhardt, Cassidy, Widowmaker, Brigitte Apr 20 - Apr 26: Orisa, Echo, Tracer, Moira Apr 27 - May 3: Wrecking Ball, Cassidy, Widowmaker, Mercy May 4 - May 10: Reinhardt, Ashe, Reaper, Brigitte
22	May 7, 2020	Jul 2, 2020	Hero bans changed to be only applied to matches with an average team SR of 3500 or greater. Banned heroes were also chosen based on usage from the Overwatch League when the League was in season, and Grandmaster and Top 500 matches when not in season. Hero bans were removed on June 8th, 2020. Hero bans: May 4 - May 10: Reinhardt, Ashe, Reaper, Brigitte May 11 - May 17: Orisa, Mei, Tracer, Moira May 18 - May 31: None June 1 - June 8: D.Va, Echo, Sombra, Brigitte
23	Jul 2, 2020	Sep 3, 2020	Open Queue system re-implemented as a separate Competitive Play mode from Role Queue.
24	Sep 3, 2020	Nov 5, 2020	No Changes
25	Nov 5, 2020	Jan 7, 2021
26	Jan 7, 2021	Mar 9, 2021
27	Mar 9, 2021	May 6, 2021	Season was delayed by five days due to technical issues. The original start date was March 4th, 2021.
28	May 6, 2021	Jul 2, 2021	No Changes
29	Jul 2, 2021	Sep 2, 2021
30	Sep 2, 2021	Nov 4, 2021
31	Nov 4, 2021	Jan 6, 2022
32	Jan 6, 2022	Mar 3, 2022
TBA	TBA	Oct 4, 2022	Season was cut short for the release of Overwatch 2 and the shut down of Overwatch 1. Final season to grant comp points for each rank, as well as icons and sprays for the season and Top 500 rankings.
Overwatch 2
Season	Start Date	End Date	Notes
1	Oct 4, 2022	Dec 6, 2022	Competitive was significantly reworked, with new placements, rewards and ranking system. A map pool is listed but does not actually apply in game.
2	Dec 6, 2022	Feb 7, 2023	There are new, temporary Competitive title rewards for name cards based on your end of season rank You can only earn these titles at the end of the current Competitive season and can only use them in the season following Heroes that aren’t eligible for competitive play will have a lock icon in the Hero Gallery Implemented a group of matchmaking enhancements to improve match quality Minor polish improvements to the competitive play UI flow New hero, Ramattra, won’t be available in competitive for 2 weeks
3	Feb 7, 2023	Apr 11, 2023	Skill tiers and divisions will adjust after every 5 wins or 15 losses and ties (formerly 7 wins or 20 losses and ties) Players can select the "View Competitive Progress" button from the Competitive menu to view their progress toward receiving a rank update Mid-season patch updated the Competitive Play menu with buttons that will allow players to easily access the tier legend, leaderboard, and competitive progress screens. As of mid-season patch, players in Top 500 will now also see an animated update of their current position on the leaderboard after each match.
4	Apr 11, 2023	Jun 13, 2023	Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region. The start of a new Competitive season no longer fully resets the severity of suspensions and bans. The number of Competitive Points (CP) rewarded for a win in Competitive Play has been changed from 15 to 25 and season end rewards adjusted. Separated Open and Role Queue challenge titles. Average match rank is displayed in the initial loading screen. All seasonal rank decay removed; Player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill. Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins. Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division.
5	Jun 13, 2023	Aug 10, 2023	Players that do not participate in Competitive Play will be marked inactive. Inactive player do not have visible rank, and each queue can become inactive separately. Improved how the matchmaker computes its initial skill estimation.
6	Aug 10, 2023	Oct 10, 2023	The number of wins required to appear on the Top 500 Leaderboard has been increased from 25 to 50. Added Player Title rewards for finishing the season ranked as Gold.
7	Oct 10, 2023	Dec 5, 2023	No changes
8	Dec 5, 2023	Feb 13, 2024	MMR Decay now only occurs for Competitive Play at the start of a new season. MMR Decay is not applied to roles that qualify for a rank. Example: A player that won five games and got a Competitive Update will not decay at the end of a season. If a player does not have a rank already who won three games and did not get a Competitive Update, that player will decay at the end of that season. If the player does have a rank, they only need to play one match in the season to keep their rank for the next season.
9	Feb 13, 2023	TBA	Major competitive update One time skill rank reset 10 Placement matches Competitive updates displayed after every match, showing modifiers that affected the amount of progress gained New rank above Grandmaster - Champion The versus screen now displays the range of ranks in the match New grouping requirements Bronze to Diamond - up to 5 player groups within 10 divisions Master - up to 5 player groups within 5 divisions Grandmaster - up to 5 player groups within 3 divisions Champion - up to 2 player groups within 3 divisions Yearly competitive seasons and reward weapons skins Season 2024 (Feb 2024 - Jan 2025): Jade weapons Competitive Points reworked 25 -> 10 per win New competitive progress meter: Complete 30 matches for 100, wins grant triple progress. Season end rewards removed Competitive Points are converted to legacy points at the end of the year, which can be used obtain previous reward skins (incl. golden)

Temporary game modes seasons

Overwatch 1
Mode	Season	Dates	Notes
Copa Lúcioball	1	Aug. 2017	Introduced with the Summer Games 2017 event.
Competitive CTF	1	Feb./Mar. 2018	Introduced with the Lunar New Year 2018 event.
Competitive 6v6 Elimination	1	Apr./May 2018	Was not part of an event.
Competitive Deathmatch	1	May/June 2018	Introduced with the Anniversary 2018 event.
Competitive 3v3 Group Elimination	1	June/July 2018	Was not part of an event. Introduced with the Looking For Group (LFG) feature. You had to be in a group of 3 players to be able to queue for the mode.
Copa Lùcioball	2	Aug. 2018	During the Summer Games 2018 event.
Competitive Team Deathmatch	1	Oct./Nov. 2018	Was not part of an event.
Competitive CTF	2	Jan./Feb. 2019	During the Lunar New Year 2019 event.
Competitive 6v6 Elimination	2	Mar./Apr. 2019	Was not part of an event.
Competitive Deathmatch	2	June/July 2019	Was not part of an event.
Copa Lùcioball	3	July/Aug. 2019	During the Summer Games 2019 event.
Competitive 3v3 Elimination	2	Oct./Nov. 2019	During the Halloween Terror 2019 event.
Competitive Team Deathmatch	2	Nov./Dec. 2019	Was not part of an event.
Competitive CTF	3	Jan./Feb. 2020	During the Lunar New Year 2020 event.
Competitive 6v6 Elimination	3	Mar./Apr. 2020	During the Archives 2020 event.
Competitive Open Queue	1	Apr. 2020	Was not part of an event.
Competitive Deathmatch	3	May/June 2020	During the Anniversary 2020 event.
Competitive Open Queue	2	June/July 2020	Was not part of an event. Is part of the main game now.
Competitive 3v3 Elimination	3	Sep./Oct. 2020	Was not part of an event.
Competitive Team Deathmatch	3	Oct./Nov. 2020	During the Halloween Terror 2020 event.
Overwatch 2
Mode	Season	Dates	Notes
Competitive CTF	2	Jan./Feb. 2023	Available for the latter half of Season 2.
Competitive Mystery Heroes	3	Mar. 2023	Available for the latter half of Season 3.
Competitive Deathmatch	4	May 2023	Available for the latter half of Season 4.
Competitive Mystery Heroes	5	June/July 2023	Available for the whole Season 5.
Competitive Mystery Heroes	5	July 2023	Available for the latter half of Season 5.
Competitive Mystery Heroes	6	Aug./Sep. 2023	Available for the whole Season 6.

Trivia

• In Custom Game only in Overwatch 2 Assault can be played with competitive rules. Players must capture both points to win the round. Point capture works like it does on Hybrid, with the rules for capturing the second point being identical to capturing the first (If players capture one point but capture none of the second, the enemy team can capture 1/3 or draw).
  • Only 30 seconds of additional time will be added to the attacking team if they successfully capture the first control point in the extra rounds, unlike the 3 minutes given in the initial rounds.

External links

• Developer Update | Let's Talk Competitive Play
• Welcome to Competitive Play