How do Ranked tier demotions work in Apex Legends Season 13

The thirteenth season of Apex Legends is finally here, and with it, Respawn Entertainment has added a new character: Newcastle. With the new competitive season in the game, many new players are investing themselves in the ranked game mode to put their skills to the test. However, some players may have questions about its ranking system.

Like every other competitive video game, Apex Legends has a ranking system based on certain tiers with specific benchmarks. Of course, the game has the standard Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers, but it also features higher tiers of Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Apex Predator. The final tier being a nod to Titanfall.

Unlike the ranking system present in other popular shooter games, Apex Legends features a different way of calculating ranks. Knowing how points are tallied in this game can help players understand what gameplay factors are crucial to ranking up so they can better practice and improve on them.

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Apex Legends' Ranking System: Earning and Losing Ranks

The rank details screen as seen in-game (Image via EA)

Some of the greater details have remained untouched from previous seasons. However, Season 13 brings some minor rework on how players can earn ranked points (RP), the points needed to increase rank. Most importantly, scoring kills in a ranked game contributes less to a player's total RP earned for the match.

This does not mean that players are discouraged from getting kills in the game. RP earned for getting kills has been readjusted to draw reference from the number of team kills compared to how the player contributed individually. If the team has 5 kills in total, but the player has not gotten one, they will receive less RP.

The cap for earning RP exclusively for kills has also been removed. However, the amount of RP players gain for getting kills in a game becomes progressively lower. The RP penalty for scoring a kill in the lower tier has also been removed. With these changes in mind, we can begin to look at how players lose their ranks.

When players start a ranked game in Apex Legends, they pay a toll of a small amount of RP. This amount of RP increases with each rank. However, players in the Bronze tier enter their ranked games for free. Once the game begins, the amount they paid will be displayed in the corner of their screen.

As the game progresses, Apex Legends players will always be able to see how much RP they will be earning. The same can be said for the amount of RP the player will lose. Players can lose RP by not completing enough actions that reward RP in a game, thus, the cost of entering the ranked game overlaps the amount of RP earned. Moving into a new tier will reward players with 100 RP.

With this in mind, players can also lose their rank. Once the player is sitting at 0 RP earned in a tier, they will have one more game to earn RP before they are demoted. Players who have just ranked up will be protected for three games before they are deranked to avoid losing their hard-earned progress.