Since November 5, losing a game in Phantom, Ascendant or Eternus costs you rank with no cushion: Valve has removed the shields from those three ranks. A shield is a loss that does not yet drop you down a badge (the full tier, from Mystic to Eternus). Deadlock’s ranked season 2, which opened the same day, runs until Thursday, March 11, 2027.
The rest of the changes push the other way: 350 points per game instead of 300, a new badge at 1,500 points instead of 2,000, four bans (the heroes barred before the game) instead of three. Our October 30 article on the end of season 1 left the questions of calibration, the reset and rewards open. Valve’s announcement answers them.
Season 1, season 2: the rules table
Everything comes from Valve’s Steam announcement of November 5, “Ranked – Beta Season 2.” The table sets the two seasons side by side.
| Rule | Season 1 | Season 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | July 30 to November 5, 2026 | November 5, 2026 to March 11, 2027 (four months) |
| Bans per game | 3 | 4 |
| Points per game | 300 | 350 |
| Points to move up a badge, from the last sub-rank | 2,000 | 1,500 |
| Points between two sub-ranks | 1,000 | 1,000 (unchanged) |
| Shields at a badge boundary | 5 | 3 |
| Shields at a sub-rank boundary | 2 | 1 |
| Shields in Phantom, Ascendant and Eternus | 5 and 2 | None |
| Hero unlock in ranked | 15 wins | 35 points (2 per win, 1 per loss) |
| Maximum placement after calibration | Oracle VI | Ascendant I, up to Ascendant III depending on the previous season |
Players who are already ranked do not go through calibration again (the games that set a first rank); everyone else does it as before. Each season now has its own leaderboard: to appear in it you need 50 ranked games over the last 30 days, and 15 games with a hero to appear in that hero’s leaderboard. Valve says it reworked the technical side of the leaderboards to fix several bugs.
Climbing: three net wins per sub-rank, five per badge
Valve gives the points, not the number of games. The calculation in net wins (wins minus losses) is ours, and it assumes that a loss takes away as much as a win earns, which the notes do not specify. Our October 30 article used about 250 points per game based on the July notes; the season 2 notes start from 300, and we keep that figure.
| Step | Season 1 | Season 2 |
|---|---|---|
| One sub-rank (1,000 points) | 4 net wins (3.3) | 3 net wins (2.9) |
| One badge from the last sub-rank | 7 net wins (6.7 for 2,000 points) | 5 net wins (4.3 for 1,500 points) |
| Unlock a hero at a 50% win rate | 30 games | 24 games |
| Unlock a hero at a 60% win rate | 25 games | 22 games |
| Unlock a hero at a 75% win rate | 20 games | 20 games |
| Unlock a hero at a 90% win rate | 17 games | 19 games |
Valve quantifies the unlock itself: 15 wins at a 50% win rate used to come to 45 points, and it now takes 35. Below a 75% win rate, the new rule is faster; above it, it is slower than the old one.
No shields at the top, and a higher start than expected
For ESTNN, this is the heaviest change to Deadlock’s ranked mode. For Phantom, Ascendant and Eternus, Valve writes that these players “will no longer have any rank loss protection shields.” For everyone else, the announcement gives an example: at Mystic I with 0 points, you used to keep the badge through five losses before dropping to Sentinel; now it is three. At a sub-rank boundary, there is one shield instead of two.
The soft reset is lighter than the one in season 1: about one badge lower on average, with adjustments of one to two sub-ranks depending on the first season’s win rate. Valve first redistributed the whole ladder to account for new players, then applied the drop, so some players ended up higher than before. The site deadlock-tracker.com measured 109,513 ranked players before and after November 6: nearly two sub-ranks higher on average, 47% of players up, the bottom of the ladder gaining more than a badge and the top losing one. Nobody started in Eternus. This is the figure of a third-party tracker, a single source we could not cross-check.
Deadlock: four bans, six bannable heroes, seven heroes tweaked
On October 30, the Halloween update removed the “new” label from the six latest heroes: “Latest 6 heroes are no longer categorized as ‘new’ anymore.” Valve adds that they follow the normal ranked unlock conditions and can be banned. It does not name them; they are most likely the six in our new heroes comparison. These heroes can therefore be among the four bans of each game.
The minor patch of November 4, published on November 5 at 6:02 a.m. Paris time, tweaks seven heroes and the Healbane item. The figures come from Valve’s note; the boon is the power bonus gained at each level tier.
| Hero | Direction | Main change |
|---|---|---|
| Celeste | Nerfed | Shining Wonder: cooldown from 160 to 170 s, slow from -32% to -28% |
| Baba | Nerfed | Melee damage per boon -10%; Baba’s Brew: cooldown from 27 to 28 s |
| Deadman Danny | Nerfed | Close The Deal: bonus against targets below half health from +75% to +55% |
| Apollo | Buffed | Itani Lo Sahn: tier 3 bonus from +50% to +60% |
| Mo & Krill | Buffed | Combo: health per kill from 40 to 50 |
| Nurse Harrow | Buffed | Bullet damage +8% |
| Rat King | Buffed | Ammo from 24 to 26 |
The effect of these tweaks has not been measured. The most recent reading in our comparison dates from October 24, before the two patches: on Deadlock API, in Phantom 1+, Rat King was first out of 44 heroes with a 54.7% win rate, Baba fifth with 53.1%, Deadman Danny last with 41.2%. On these pre-patch figures, Rat King and Baba are the most obvious bans. No reading after November 5 says whether their rate has moved.
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