Apex Legends Season 31 Ranked Changes: Legend Bans, Goliaths, Shields

Season 31 "Cipher" is a transition season for Apex Legends ranked. The big ladder rebuild is planned for Season 32, but EA moved three changes forward, and between them they touch every ranked player: Legend bans at the top, entry costs that depend on who you're dropping with, and demotion protection you can finally see. This guide covers everything EA has officially announced for ranked in Season 31, from its Ranked Roadmap (20 October 2026) and the Cipher posts of 29 and 30 October, as of 2 November 2026. EA scheduled the full patch notes for 2 November; where a detail depends on them, we say so.

Season 31 "Cipher" at a glance

• 3 Nov 2026Season 31 starts; patch notes scheduled for 2 November
• Diamond+matches that use Legend bans
• ±2 tiersfrom the lobby's median: Challenger or Goliath entry
• 3 shieldsbefore a demotion, shown on screen

Cipher adds no new legend; EA's posts list a Crypto rework and buffs for Lifeline and Revenant instead, plus a Loba nerf, a new Akimbo Wingman, Strongholds and District at night. The ladder itself, eight tiers from Rookie to Apex Predator with four divisions from Rookie to Diamond, stays as it is for this season as far as EA has announced: the new Iron, Emerald and Grandmaster tiers are planned for Season 32. Our Apex ranks guide has the full ladder.

Legend bans in Diamond+ matches

This is the change top players will feel first. EA's roadmap says bans are enabled "alongside Drop Zone deployment, so that any match with Diamond+ players will use the feature"; its 29 October post puts it as "Legend Bans come to Diamond lobbies and above". EA's posts name Drop Zone deployment without describing it in detail; for bans, the rule that matters is a Diamond or higher player in the match. How a ban works, step by step:

1. Everyone requests one Legend.

   Each player in the match picks one Legend they'd like banned.

2. Votes become ban chances.

   When everyone has picked, or the timer runs out, each requested Legend shows a ban chance that rises with the number of votes it got.

3. The game draws the bans.

   The system bans at random using those percentages. A Legend with many votes is very likely to go, but not certain; one with a single vote can still be drawn.

EA chose weighted random bans on purpose, to avoid a "banning meta" where the same Legends disappear from every match. What EA hadn't said when this page was checked is how many Legends are banned per match.

Which Legends draw the votes will depend on the Season 31 meta. For a sense of who's most at risk: at the end of Season 30 the community tracker apexlegendsstatus counted Loba in 23.8% and Pathfinder in 16.3% of the ranked games played by the top 100 Predators on each platform, far ahead of anyone else.

If one of them is your main, Season 31 is the time to learn a second and a third. Our Season 31 legend picks covers the data in full.

Challenger and Goliath lobbies

The second change rewrites the entry cost. Until now it depended only on your tier: 0 RP in Rookie up to 90 in Master. From Season 31 every lobby also gets a Lobby Tier, the median of all squads' tiers, and a squad far from it pays a different price:

EA's example is a lobby whose median is Gold: there, Bronze squads are Challengers and a Diamond squad is a Goliath. The game shows the adjustment before the match starts, so you always know what you're paying.

The idea is fairness both ways: a squad dragged into a lobby full of stronger players risks less, and a strong squad farming weaker lobbies risks more. EA's roadmap illustrates it with an example picture, but it hadn't published the exact adjustments as rules, so treat any specific "Goliath costs X RP" figure as unconfirmed until the patch notes give one. The base entry costs by tier are in Apex RP explained.

Three demotion shields

Apex already protected you from dropping a division on one unlucky game; you just couldn't see how much protection was left. EA calls the Season 31 version a UI refresh of that existing feature:

• When it switches on: as soon as a single match could demote you.
• What you get: "While active, you get three Demotion Shields", and "you will only be demoted after exhausting all of your Demotion Shields."
• When it switches off: once you've gained enough RP that one match can't demote you any more, or when you do demote.

In practice, the shields on screen tell you how much protection you have left at a division's edge before you drop. When you see the first one disappear, that's a good moment to stop, warm up or change something, rather than queue straight into the next match.

Ranked unlocks at account level 20 again

Since the Takeover update (10 February 2025) new players had to complete Road to Ranked challenges on top of reaching level 20, because the developers said the old level-20-only gate "was easy for third-party bots to abuse". The roadmap reverses that: "Road to Ranked Challenges are being removed and access to Ranked will move back to only requiring Account Level 20." EA adds that it "will keep exploring" the right threshold, so the number could change again later.

What stays the same

As far as EA has announced, Season 31 keeps the rest of the ranked rules you know from Season 30:

• The ladder: Rookie to Diamond with four divisions each, Master, and Apex Predator as the top 750 Masters per platform.
• The scoring: placement-scaled kills, kills halved after the eighth, the higher-tier bonus and the top-five streak.
• The premade rule: everyone in a ranked squad within two ranks of each other, matched at the squad's highest RP. EA tested a one-tier limit and a Diamond+ solo-only queue in 2026 and made neither permanent. See ranked party rules.
• The resets: placement from hidden MMR at the season start, EA's fixed table at split two, and rewards from your best split. See ranked reset and split two.

The Season 31 split-two date and ranked map rotation weren't in EA's earlier posts; both come with the patch notes.

The rest of Cipher that matters in ranked

EA's designer's notes (30 October) and update post (29 October) change four Legends that matter in ranked:

Legend	Change	Ranked angle
Crypto	Rework: the drone runs on a 25-second battery (+10 s with "Charged Up"); marks last 8 s (12 s with the upgrade); the EMP deals 50 shield damage without drone line of sight and full damage with it; "Hackathon" is removed.	A full rework of the information Legend; expect the first week to be experiments.
Lifeline	Tactical cooldown −10 s; heals while gliding; level-3 upgrade choices become Ultimate Cooldown (−60 s) or Revive Shield.	More uptime for the Support who keeps a squad alive into the top five.
Revenant	Tactical −5 s and Ultimate −30 s; a 35 s cap removed; knocks add 5 s.	Rewards aggressive pushes that land knocks.
Loba	Nerf: Tactical 25 → 30 s, Ultimate 120 → 150 s, undoing her Season 30 Ultimate buff.	The top Predators' most-played Legend in Season 30 gets weaker.

Elsewhere, a new Akimbo Wingman arrives and the Hemlok Burst AR returns (the Elite Hemlok is vaulted). Every match gets one Stronghold "in addition to our existing Care Packages": it holds crate weapons, corrupted attachments and EVO, and opening it sets off an alarm, so in ranked expect it to pull in other squads. District goes back to night time. EA also confirmed that Season 32 brings Kings Canyon Evolved, a major map update.

What it means for your climb

This part is our boosters' view, not EA's; the rules above are the facts, these are the habits we'd build around them.

• Diamond and up: carry a pool of three. One Legend per role you can play well (for example a mobility pick, a Recon and a Support) means a ban costs you a preference, not a match.
• Respect the Goliath tag. EA's own example is a Diamond squad in a Gold lobby. When the pre-match screen says Goliath, a bad game costs more than usual, so the top-half finish matters even more than the kills.
• Challenger lobbies are a chance. Fighting up already pays a 15–50% kill bonus against higher tiers; a cheaper entry on top makes those lobbies less risky than before.
• Read the shields. Losing the first shield is a signal, not a countdown to ignore.

The full climbing approach, including solo queue, is in how to rank up in Apex.

Help in Season 31

Our boosters play today's rules, bans and Goliath lobbies included, and our prices come from the same engine as checkout, division by division. Platinum IV to Diamond IV, the step into ban territory, is $40.32 today, and Diamond IV to Master $83.16. Apex Legends boosting isn't open for orders yet: get the launch alert on the Apex Legends page. Boosting conflicts with EA's rules, which call account sharing and paid levelling by third-party sellers unauthorized; read the Risk Disclosure and is Apex boosting safe? first. Coaching is the option that stays inside the rules.

• Climb: Rank Boost to any division up to Master, piloted or duo.
• Build a ban-proof pool: coaching on a second and third Legend.
• On your main: the 4K damage badge, earned per Legend.

Related guides: the Season 32 overhaul · Season 31 legend picks · Apex RP explained · reaching Master and Predator