New Competitive Changes for Overwatch 2's Season 9

Massive changes are coming to Overwatch 2's ranked systems. From Emerald Weapon rewards to a new 'Ultimate' rank above Grandmaster, to how your rank is determined, there's a lot to cover. So, let's get started!

New 'Competitive Overview' Page

In Season 9, your rank will update instantly after every match. On the Competitive Overview screen, you can see exactly how your rank is progressing with never-seen-before clarity. Any modifier that impacted your most recent change in rating will be displayed below your Rank Progress bar. In the image below, these are 'Advantage,' 'Streak,' and 'Calibration.' This new system will allow you to track precisely how you are progressing through each individual rank.

Placements Return!

Season 9 will also see the return of ranked resets and 10 placement matches. This is especially significant because these placement matches will count for bonus progress towards either ranking up or ranking down, as seen on the Competitive Overview screenshot, so take these placement games seriously if you intend to gain an early advantage when the new season begins!

New Rank: Ultimate 

With more Grandmaster rank players in Overwatch 2 than at any time in Overwatch's history, the new coveted rank of Ultimate will be introduced in Season 9 for the most elite players in the game to battle for.

Emerald Weapons

Gold weapon rewards have become all too common, and to give players something further to strive towards, Emerald weapons will be introduced in Season 9, purchasable with competitive points. However, any competitive points that remain unspent when Season 9 goes live will be converted into a new legacy currency. This means these Emerald weapon skins can only be purchased using competitive currency from the most recent season. The current plan is to introduce fresh weapon skins similar to Emerald approximately once per year, so you'll always have something fresh to spend your points on.

New Seasonal Rewards Page

Rather than rewarding large sums of competitive points at the end of the season, in Season 9, both wins and losses will earn you steady progress towards competitive point payouts throughout the duration of the season. This new Seasonal Rewards page aims to offer a much cleaner representation of your goals across every role in competitive.

Competitive Grouping Restrictions 

Many grouping restrictions in competitive will be outright removed in Season 9. This means a Bronze rank player will be permitted to group up and play with a Diamond rank teammate. However, this may come at the cost of queue duration. The new ranked queue will strive to match your imbalanced group against a similarly imbalanced group, creating fairer matchmaking at the expense of queue times. Additionally, this change should also improve match fairness for solo queue players, as the queue system will strive to place solo queue players exclusively with other solo queue players where possible.