Overview
- Valve made the new ranked mode live in late July, which launched July 30, but most players cannot join yet because they must meet the new unlock requirements.
- Players must earn 60 wins in Standard play to enter ranked and must unlock at least three heroes by winning 15 matches on each before they may queue with them.
- The ranking system uses 11 ranks with numbered subranks, an eight-match calibration phase, a rank-point progression model, and protections to reduce sudden rank drops.
- Matchmaking keeps the hero-queue model while adding pre-game hero swaps, visibility of starting lineups, lane swaps in lobby, a two-minute no-pause rule, and solo-or-duo queue limits with tight rank spreads.
- Valve says the update required a large backend rewrite, expects a rocky first week with longer queues and bugs, sets the season through October 7, 2026, and plans to monitor and adjust party, queue and recency rules based on early data.