Competitive Apex is going strong in 2025, so it’s essential to understand the ranking system if you want to compete for a top spot. There are a variety of ranks you can achieve while working your way up, so Esports Insider is bringing you a guide on how to climb the ranks.

Below, competitive players will find out everything they need to know about the ranking system, including how to rank up faster in Apex Legends.

There are seven ranks to achieve in Apex Legends for competitive players. In ranked trios, players start in the Rookie rank and work up to Master. Those who are in Master rank and also in the top 750 players on their platform of choice will be marked as an Apex Predator. Some ranks in Apex Legends have multiple tiers to climb, which may include I, II, III, and IV.

Matches of ranked cost Ranked Points (RP) to enter once you leave the Rookie rank. RP is acquired by placing within the top 50% of a match, and the RP needed to begin a match grows with every new rank you achieve. Below is a list of every rank and the RP it costs to begin a match within each rank.

When players first load into a ranked match, their team will randomly have a point of interest chosen as a drop spot. Every player starts as the Rookie Rank, then climbs the six remaining ranks until eventually achieving Master. With four divisions for every rank, you’ll have to earn thousands of Ranked Points (RP) to get to the top.

Ranks don’t decay in Apex, but they are reset whenever a new season launches, as well as once in the middle of each season, which is known as a split. A new player’s matchmaking ranking from unranked trios is used to determine the starting rank of beginners.

We’ve created a compilation of every rank below, as well as how much RP you’ll need to collect to progress through each tier according to the EA website.

Tip: To play ranked with your friends, you’ll need to be within three ranks of the other players in your starting lobby.

Those with a competitive mindset can earn special rewards from ranked play for placing in high tiers, like badges. You can also show off your rank by turning on your aura, which reflects the tier you’re in at the moment.

Rank distribution helps players understand how many competitors of each rank are in a match of Apex. Before a match starts, the game will show you the rank distribution in the lobby.

Apex Legends Status shows that most of the active players participating in ranked in October 2025 fall in the Gold or Platinum tiers. Unfortunately, Respawn doesn’t regularly release statistics about rank distribution.

Skilled competitors in Apex should set their sights on getting eliminations and surviving until the last few teams in a match. However, meeting special conditions can also help you rank up swiftly, like placing in the top few teams in consecutive games.

Competitive players aiming to rank up quickly in Apex Legends should set their objective on survival while also playing aggressively. You’ll find stealth weapons like sniper rifles helpful for this goal.

There is no rank decay mechanic in Apex Legends as of October 2025. However, ranks are occasionally reset at the start and in the middle of a season. Depending on your ranked matchmaking ranking (MMR), you’ll be assigned a lower rank when each reset occurs.

Here’s a full list of split two rank reset values, as per the EA website.

Ranking up is hard in Apex Legends, but armed with the information above, anybody can become a battle royale master. Competitors don’t need to worry about rank decay in Apex, but be on the lookout for rank resets twice per season.

If you want to make it big in the Apex esports scene, then ranked is the first stepping stone you’ll need to overcome in Respawn’s first-person shooter.

A 16-year-old Tekken 8 player dominated at Evo France 2025, finishing in 17th place.

Evo France 2025 is Neia‘s second in-person Major, but she’s already shown incredible promise, beating a lot of respected players on her unstoppable fight to Day 2.

French teenager Neia is a Lili main who has been grinding Tekken 8 online. In June, she was encouraged to attend a local and – despite being very hesitant and shy – Neia showed up and impressed the crowd.

After signing with BMS Esports, Neia decided to compete in the largest European fighting game event, Evo France 2025. She took part in the Women in Fighting Games panel and has been unstoppable in the Tekken 8 tournament so far.

Neia showed off her incredible skills and determination as she fought through the Winner’s side, making it to the Top 128. She’s beaten respected names like Hakim ‘Skywalker’ Touré and Jonathan ‘Tibetano’ Medina.

Today is Day 2 for the Tekken 8 tournament and she faced some tough competition. After reaching Top 24, she found herself knocked out of Losers by Team Falcons’ Akhil ‘Tetsu’ Kakar.

With six wins and two losses, Neia finished Evo France 2025 in 17th place. There were 1,169 competitors. At just 16 years old and having never competed on a big stage before, this is an incredible run for who could become the next Tekken 8 prodigy.

Despite Fortnite leading the way in the battle-royale genre, it’s a broader market when it comes to the free-to-play scene. A relatively new challenger, Marvel Rivals, developed by NetEase Games, launched in December 2024 to see if it could take a slice of Fortnite’s pie, and even this early on, signs are looking promising.

With over 40 million active players, the game has been going down well in several markets, and its Marvel Rivals Ignite esports tournament has already brought in thousands of viewers since its May debut. But with Fortnite still riding high, especially with the recent K-Pop Demon Hunters collab and the Megazord update, there are plenty of factors that pit the two titles against one another.

With this in mind, we’re breaking down how Fortnite and Marvel Rivals compare, and scoring them out of 10 in a range of categories to see which title comes out on top.

Whether you’re new or a Fortnite veteran, you know how you’re dropped into a map that shrinks over time, against 99 other players. Whether solo or in a team, the aim is to win the match while levelling up by completing objectives in various ways. But that’s just the start of what Fortnite offers, gameplay-wise. Building structures to take cover from fire, or just as a mini-base for a short while, can give players some creativity as the players dwindle in matches. Combined with the ever-changing weapons and items, you get a title that feels fresh almost every time you play it.

Marvel Rivals, while also a third-person free-to-play shooter, leans into other popular titles like Overwatch. This is partly because characters, instead of avatars with cosmetics, are offered here, such as Hulk, Magneto, Storm, and more. In total, 43 characters are split into Duelists, Strategists, and Vanguards, which can vary the gameplay for players, helping them decide how they’re going to approach each match. With each hero having their own unique powers, it can help keep up the pace, especially with match-driven objectives. Marvel Rivals surprises with the depth of its gameplay thanks to the number of heroes and their abilities, which can be a breath of fresh air if you’re a longtime player of Fortnite.

Fortnite score: 8/10

Marvel Rivals score: 8/10

One of Fortnite’s advantages is how it extends beyond the battle-royale mode. Once you go to the main screen, you’re greeted with a bunch of game modes — such as LEGO Fortnite, Blitz, Festival, Zero Build, and much more. In addition, players can create their own modes, adding to the replayability even more. Fortnite’s seasons and chapters change the map and cosmetics and influence the game modes, bringing variety every time. These modes place Fortnite as a platform, more than a surface-level battle-royale game.

Marvel Rivals is more rigid in its modes by offering a few within two types: Quick Match and Competitive. Convergence has players in a 6v6 match where you must either aid or destroy a vehicle moving past several checkpoints, a King-of-the-Hill style mode called Domination, and Convoy, where Attackers and Defenders revolve around a payload. Arcade mode has two, called Conquest and Doom Match, which are your standard Team-Deathmatch and free-for-all modes for players to take part in. While all of these are structured, they don’t offer the creative freedom that Fortnite does, but that’s not what Marvel Rivals is about. It’s more to do with the types of heroes you play as than with the team you work with. The game lays down clear rules for each mode, which can be a lot of fun in the many maps players can visit.

Fortnite score: 9/10

Marvel Rivals score: 8/10

Characters are arguably the main difference between Marvel Rivals and Fortnite. Granted, Fortnite has benefited from its numerous collabs throughout the years. From Batman to Power Rangers, players can equip certain outfits, become one of their childhood heroes, and be in a team consisting of Halo’s Master Chief, Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft, and the Power Rangers’ Megazord. Oddly enough, these clashes of franchises work in Fortnite due to the randomness and the many modes the title offers players. Developer Epic Games also keeps it fresh by releasing new characters via the Fortnite shop every few weeks, meaning players can spend the game’s in-game currency, V-Bucks, to play as characters exclusive to the shop. This randomness and absurdity work in Fortnite’s favour, and it’s no surprise that players still love to see the crossovers happen with their favourite franchises.

In Marvel Rivals’ case, the game unsurprisingly relies on its licensed characters from Marvel only, with, at the time of writing, 43 characters to choose from. But these aren’t just skins like Fortnite. Instead, every hero has their own abilities and voices, meaning the game’s variety and replayability are huge. If you pick a different character in each match, you’ll see how these heroes work throughout the game modes. This can help you decide on your favourite character currently in the game, while the Marvel IP provides hints on those who could join in future seasons.

Fortnite score: 9/10

Marvel Rivals score: 8/10

Once Fortnite exploded onto the esports scene in 2019 with the Fortnite World Cup, developer Epic Games knew it had something special. After the success of the World Cup, it directly funded the title’s esports events worldwide, and still does today. Plenty of tournaments can be entered without being in a team, meaning new players can easily take part in the events. In regard to prize pools, these are still very high, with one recent tournament, the Champion Series 2024, being set at $2 million. Combined with the many collabs and the ever-changing gameplay mechanics thanks to the new seasons as of late, these all keep Fortnite very prominent in the esports scene, ensuring that its iconic unpredictability is brought to tournaments all over the world.

Despite launching in December 2024, developer NetEase Games has wasted no time in getting Marvel Rivals ready for the esports industry. Called Marvel Rivals Ignite, it began on May 1, with a huge $2 million prize pool up for grabs. Already, there has been a large number of viewers keeping track of the tournament, with the game’s YouTube channel already gaining over 700,000 subscribers wanting to keep track of Ignite, as well as a minimum of 10,000 viewers having watched every video of the tournament. Admittedly, it’s too early to say whether Marvel Rivals will match up to Fortnite’s success in the esports scene. But with a huge viewership already for the game’s first official tournament, the signs are promising.

Fortnite score: 9/10

Marvel Rivals score: 8/10

It’s a very close call for Fortnite vs Marvel Rivals, but Fortnite barely wins it, with 34 points compared to 32 for Marvel Rivals. Despite launching in December 2024, NetEase’s title has a lot going for it, such as the number of unique characters players can pick, the varied game modes, and the relatively new Ignite esports tournament drawing in thousands of viewers.

But Fortnite’s longevity, collabs, and breadth of game modes just edge it out from the comparison. Granted, both games don’t fall into the same battle-royale genre, but there are plenty of similarities here. Deciding between Marvel Rivals or Fortnite is no easy choice, but your favourite now might not be your favourite in a few months. Ultimately, it will be interesting how Marvel Rivals looks and feels further down the line. There’s a lot of promise there — the question is whether players will stick with it, and how NetEase plans to keep the title going with its upcoming seasons.

North American esports organisation Sentinels will officially join the League Championship Series (LCS) for the 2026 season.

According to announcements from both LoL Esports and Sentinels, the organisation has secured a place in North America’s premier League of Legends competition, marking a return to the MOBA title for the first time since its days as Phoenix1.

Rob Moore, CEO of Sentinels, commented on the expansion: “This is the next stage in Sentinels’ evolution. We started in 2018 with a focus on the newest games like Fortnite, where Sentinels Bugha brought home the inaugural Fortnite World Cup in 2019, VALORANT, where we have brought home two international trophies, and most recently Marvel Rivals, where we qualified for the first international event but did not manage to bring home a trophy.

“Now, entering the most popular and enduring game in the world, League of Legends, is the natural next step.”

The announcement arrives as the LCS prepares to return to an independent league model in 2026, with Sentinels becoming the league’s eighth permanent partner team. Before the Sentinels brand was established, the organisation competed in the LCS as Phoenix1 from Summer 2016 through Summer 2017.

The roster also represented North America at the first Rift Rivals event in Berlin, helping the region defeat EU with a 4-2 record that included a perfect 2-0 performance against G2 Esports. In Summer 2017, Phoenix1 was home to Mike ‘MikeYeun’ Yeung, who claimed Rookie of the Split.

Sentinels has since built a championship pedigree in Riot Games’ tactical shooter VALORANT, winning two international trophies at VALORANT Masters Madrid 2024 and VALORANT Masters Reykjavík 2021.

According to the release, Sentinels will invest in multi-year infrastructure, coaching and player development to build a roster combining veteran experience with emerging talent. The organisation will announce staffing, roster timelines and community initiatives in the months ahead.

Moore added: “Riot has been a great partner to our organisation. We have seen first-hand how a clear competitive framework and strong live events can grow a scene and energise fans. Our goal is to help elevate the LCS while building a roster and style of play that our supporters can rally behind.”

The announcement was accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek video from legendary LCS player Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng, who appeared in a Sentinels uniform to welcome the organisation to the league. He confirmed that he would not be joining the roster or working with the team — though he joked about wanting to meet TenZ, Sentinels’ star VALORANT player.

The Esports World Cup Foundation has revealed details for its Counter-Strike 2 tournament taking place at its 2026edition.

The competition will expand in several ways, with a longer tournament run, more teams attending, and an increased prize pool of $2m (~£1.48m).

The tournament is scheduled to take place from August 12th to 23rd, 2026, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Similar to 2025, all events, including the Open Qualifier, will be played in-person on LAN. Invited teams will be based on the first available monthly VRS publication in June 2026, with seeding based on the results a month afterwards.

According to the announcement by the Esports World Cup (EWC), various changes are coming to the 2026 edition.

The prize pool has increased by $750,000 (~£558,500) compared to the 2025 tournament. There will be 11 days of competition, six days more than in 2025, with a five-day Group Stage and six-day Playoffs. It is estimated that over 80 hours of Counter-Strike 2 will be played, over double the time played at 2025 EWC.

There will be 32 teams competing, an increase of 16, with 28 invited and four advancing through the open qualifier. There will be four groups of eight teams in a double-elimination Group Stage. The top 16 teams will enter the Playoffs, with matches in a BO3 format except the BO5 Grand Final.

The Counter-Strike 2 competition during EWC 2025 was won by The MongolZ, which took home $500,000 in winnings after defeating Aurora Gaming in the Grand Finals.

Details of the Counter Strike 2 tournament follow the announcement of 20 returning titles for EWC 2026, including other competitive shooters like VALORANT, Rainbow Six Siege X, and Call of Duty Black Ops 7.

Whilst expected, Counter-Strike 2’s return to EWC is a controversial decision, as the event itself continues to draw criticism due to its association with, and backing by, the Saudi Arabian government. In particular, criticism is targeted towards the country’s controversial social policies and human rights record surrounding women and LGBTQ+ communities.

Few heroes provoke as much debate as Victor in Deadlock, an undead brawler with a kit built around self‑harm and resurrection. Debuted dead last as part of the six-hero community-voted release, Victor was an overtuned powerhouse that instantly dominated lobbies with a sky-high winrate. The situation was so bad that Victor was nerfed multiple times within a few hours of his release.

Yet, it didn’t stop there, as Victor has proven to be a balance nightmare. Since release, Victor’s numbers and mechanics have been tweaked almost every patch, yet he remains either a pub‑stomping menace or a throw pick depending on who you ask. Why is this straightforward hero causing Valve so many issues?

Even though Victor was the last to arrive through voting, the community quickly fell in love with his high-risk kit, which dealt massive area damage to the frontline. His kit is built around his signature ability, Aura of Suffering, where he deals spirit damage over time to both enemies and himself, increasing in damage the longer the ability is channelled. 

During fights, Victor is a huge threat that demands teams focus fire on him. This is his ideal situation as he has sustain from Jumpstart to keep him in the fight, while throwing out Pain Battery when absorbing enough damage. When Victor falls, he resurrects himself with his ultimate, Shocking Reanimation, to give him a second chance to clean up the fight.

Victor is severely item-dependent, but once he hits his core build within decent timing, he can take over the game by simply running towards the enemy team. His straightforward but effective kit quickly made him a menace, and saw an emergency hotfix from Valve just hours after his launch. 

Valve wasn’t satisfied and continued dismantling Victor with many nerfs throughout multiple patches. The common changes were aimed at his survivability, particularly with how much self-damage Victor could get away with when using Aura of Suffering.

His signature ability received nerfs to its area of effect, cooldown (which prevented rapidly toggling the ability), and damage from spirit scaling. Additionally, Victor’s ultimate wasn’t safe from the nerf hammer, moving its original tier 1 upgrade, where he received more spirit damage per bullet, to tier 3, removing a big source of burst in the mid game. 

Jumpstart was also hit with a painful nerf that increased its recharge timer from three seconds to eight, which made items that increase charges mandatory for the character. Not only did this affect his health regeneration, but this also hindered his movement speed buff and reliable source of cleanse, which he desperately needed against anti-heal.

However, Victor’s change invalidated his past playstyle and common builds. Aura of Suffering and Jumpstart’s self-damage can no longer be reduced by Spirit resistance. Before this change, Victor had a horrible laning stage and mid-game, and needed Spirit resistance items to survive his self-damage. 

Now, Victor is doing his enemies a favour and doing most of the damage to himself, which feels even worse when the enemy buys their own Spirit resist item to mitigate his damage. 

The round of nerfs proved too much for Victor, and he finally received some buffs two days later, lowering Aura of Sufferings’ self-damage to 70%, but also reducing its radius again. The ability also received a damage buff.

Despite all the nerfs, Victor’s remained a popular pick with a good winrate that hovered around 52%. While that seems healthy, the issue is how polarising he is across different skill brackets. Victor is a low elo menace, a pub stomper that can solo carry games after spending half an hour farming.

Balancing Victor has always been difficult because of his linear, but highly effective playstyle. When he farms fast and builds the right items, he becomes an unkillable raid boss. However, if the enemy team has an inkling of how to build counter items, such as anti-heal, slows, or Spirit resist, he melts instantly when entering a teamfight.

Sorting tracker sites by rank shows how quickly Victor’s winrate drops off the higher the skill level increases. It eventually gets to a point where Victor sinks to the bottom with a ~44% win rate. It’s even worse in the pro scene as Victor is nowhere to be found.

Compared to similar characters like Pudge and Wraith King from Dota 2, Victor doesn’t have utility that can help set up a gank or a teamfight. This means that he has nothing to offer when falling behind, little to do during even games, but can stomp hard during winning games. 

Better players can farm efficiently and itemise accordingly. But if matchmaking is working, better players know he is a soul-hungry hero and won’t join any fights until he hits his timing, letting them take free objectives.

Dedicated Victor players are leaning more into stacking healing and regeneration, with items like Mystic Regeneration and Healing Booster keeping him healthy through a fight. Hybrid builds that also boost his gun damage are also gaining popularity, pushing him further and further away from the fun, frontline tank he was on release. 

Balancing a hero who hurts himself to hurt others is inherently tricky, but that doesn’t mean the problem is unsolvable. He’s a character that lives or dies on raw numbers, whether his own or through items, where even the smallest buffs in his current state can cause him to run rampant in lower elo. 

Valve should decide whether Victor is disruptive because of his damage as he is now, or consider adding utility and interactivity to his kit, making him more interactive and rewarding better play.

Trading off damage for utility, like increasing damage against enemies from his allies or conditional crowd control similar to Warden, would make him more teamplay-oriented and less like a solo carry.

But first, the fun factor. Victor has perhaps the weakest laning phase because his abilities actively hurt him without the means to sustain him. In practice, this creates extremely boring laning phases where the Victor is turtling and hiding, aiming to at least survive so he can go and farm elsewhere.

Instead of tying Aura of Suffering to a flat percentage, why not scale the self-damage with the number of enemies affected, along with time spent channelling? While this keeps Victor’s self-damage to around the same amount in normal fights, this incentivises him to be more active during the laning phase.

His revive is another ability that’s worth questioning, not because second chances are inherently unfun, but because it warps his game plan on whether or not it’s off cooldown. Instead, lean into his theme of sharing pain with a conditional ultimate that activates with low health, giving him damage reduction and ramping up Aura of Suffering even more. 

Heroes like Huskar from Dota 2 perfectly demonstrate how to fight heroes who are more effective on lower HP, and whether the team can commit with enough burst damage.

This transitions into the fact that Deadlock is still in beta, and there’s no proper drafting system in place. Victor’s tendency to dip into low health can be countered by heroes like Shiv or Grey Talon, or his lack of real initiation can be controlled with heroes like Kelvin or Vindicta. While he may seem oppressive in lower elos, eventually the skill and knowledge will trickle down, and what would have happened to him by then?

Victor’s fundamental design tension is thrilling because it rewards risk with a big payoff. He’s the hero who lives hard, and that’s why players love him, and balance teams don’t know what to do with him. 

While it’s fine for games to have fringe cases to keep gameplay more unique, Valve should find a way to trade his all-or-nothing loops into something more interactive. Without it, Victor’s polarising presence dictates every lobby, and it’s usually bad for his own team.

Razer has announced that it will launch an exclusive line-up of themed peripherals as part of its collaboration with Riot Games‘ 2v2 fighting game 2XKO.

The collection includes gaming chairs, headsets, and fighting sticks to celebrate the League of Legends spin-off game’s transfer to Early Access.

“2XKO brings a bold new intensity to the fighting game genre, and we are excited to support its competitive spirit with gear engineered for performance, precision and style,” said Addie Tan, Global Head of Lifestyle Division at Razer.

“This collection is crafted for precision, tuned for dominance, and styled to stand out.”

The collection includes three peripherals themed after the tag-team FGC title.

The Razer Kitsune arcade controller gets a 2XKO makeover, with one of the game’s champions, Ahri, featured on the fight stick.

Razer’s headset, the BlackShark V3 Pro, boasts a white and purple colour scheme similar to 2XKO’s aesthetics. Finally, the peripheral brand’s gaming chair, the Iskur V2 X, boasts a white and green colourway featuring line-art of the game’s champions, including Vi, Ekko, Yasuo and Jinx.

The peripherals will be available to pre-order through Razer’s official site and selected online retailers.

These are all the prices of Razer’s 2XKO themed collection:

Razer’s themed collection will also be showcased at the EVO France 2025 event, displayed in the commentator booth of the broadcast stage and alongside competitor setups on the tournament floor.

2XKO is Riot Games’ 2v2 tag team fighting game based on the hit MOBA and esports title, League of Legends, featuring iconic characters from the Summoners Rift.

Razer’s announcement comes as 2XKO enters Early Access, allowing players to experience the main frame of the game for the first time. Alongside exiting Closed Beta, the developer also shared plans for content releasing in Season 0, including new champions, skins, features and balance changes.