Vanguard Ranked Play: Rules & Restrictions

Curious about pro-level CoD? Or, maybe you're a long-term CoD comp fan? Either way, we've got good news for you: Ranked Play is coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer in Season 2.

Ranking All Weapons In Vanguard — And so it begins. | © Activision

So you fancy yourself at Call of Duty? Think you're cracked at Warzone but want to see how those CDL fellas play? Well, thankfully, we finally got Ranked Play with the release of Season 2. In this article, you can find out how ranked play works and what weapons and equipment are restricted right now.

However, please always remember that the mode is currently still in beta. So there may still be some changes to the mode and there may still be some bugs and other problems. For example, your match could simply crash shortly after the start, like CDL pro ZooMaa had to experience:

ZooMaa almost played a Ranked match.. (It's not live btw) pic.twitter.com/F3veZwyHIV
— CDL Intel (@intelCDL) February 18, 2022

What Is Ranked Play In Call of Duty?

Ranked Play is a multiplayer mode that follows the same competitive ruleset as the CDL, in this mode you have an Elo rating that goes up or down based on whether you win or lose games. Effectively, this means you'll be playing matches of the competitive game modes (SnD, Hardpoint and Control), with only 4 players a side, and using only a select few weapons and gadgets deemed to be balanced. When you win, your ranking goes up, and when you lose, it goes down. Depending on how good your ranking is, you'll be placed in a division.

What Are The Ranked Divisions In Call of Duty?

After five placement matches, you will be placed in one of the divisions shown below, which corresponds to your skill. Depending on your division, matchmaking works as follows:

Players in Master & Challenger can form parties with players up to one adjacent Skill Division away.
Players in Elite can form parties with players up to two adjacent Skill Divisions away.
Players below Elite can party up without restrictions and can party with players who haven’t yet completed their Seasonal Skill Evaluation matches.

Here we have listed all divisions from the lowest to the highest for you:

Contender
Specialist
Advanced
Expert
Elite
Master
Challenger
Top 250

With Season 2: Reloaded, the brand new "Top 250" division has been added, which, as the name suggests, will feature the top 250 CoD players in the world. There will also be a separate leaderboard for this division.

What Are The Competitive Rules In Call of Duty?

If you're just getting into the Call of Duty competitive scene, then you may not realize how much is restricted in competitive play compared to ordinary multiplayer. You can find a list of the officially restricted items beneath.