Big updates are on their way to the Overwatch 2 Competitive system next week. More information about why your rank changes, a complete fresh restart, and a lot more are included in the latest Overwatch blog.
When Season 9 begins next Tuesday, Competitive players will notice their ranks have completely reset. No matter where you are currently, you will be starting from scratch, with your first ten matches decided where your beginning rank is. If this is anything like previous iterations of placement matches, you will likely find your first earned rank much lower than where you left off.
Luckily, you will have a lot more information about how your matches are affecting your rank. Currently, after five wins or 15 losses, your rank changes, and you are left wondering how your placement was tabulated. With the new Competitive system, you will see a progress bar showing how close you are to the next rank and various modifiers explaining why you have gone up or down.
Of course, this all comes with the added news that there is a brand new rank set above Grand Master now, called Champion. With the massive influx of new players that Overwatch 2 saw with the move to free-to-play, there has been a lot of discussion about the large disparity of skill within the current ranks. This new addition helps stretch out the ranks and hopefully lead to more fairer matches in the future.
The above outlines the big key points for the Overwatch 2 Competitive system changes, but there is a new reward on the way as well. To this point, the only reward for gaining Competitive Points is to choose a golden weapon for your favorite heroes. Now, a new jade variant has been added. Unfortunately, the Competitive Points you have saved up will be converted into Legacy Points and will only work on gold, not jade weapons.
With all of these changes, plus the drastic changes to normal gameplay between more health, passive healing for everyone, and more Season 9 of Overwatch 2 is looking to be quite the adjustment phase for the game.