The Rocket League ranks and ranking system are a confusing aspect of competitive Rocket League, especially if you've never played a ranked mode before. If you want to prove your skill at the flying car football game though, you need to master Rocket League ranked and how the ranks work. Here's everything you need to know about Rocket League ranks, from the lowly depths of bronze to the soaring heights of Supersonic Legend. Which means the Rocket League ranks take the prize for the coolest sounding ranking system in the competitive gaming world.

Rocket League Ranks: What Is Competitive Play?

In competitive Rocket League, which can be found by clicking Play followed by Competitive, there are three playlists:

• 3v3 Standard
• 2v2 Doubles
• 1v1 Duel

Within each game mode, you will get a separate rank. For example, if you play more 3v3 Standard, you might be Diamond rank there, but because you're not as good at 1v1 matches, you're only Gold in Duel. When playing competitive, you will initially have to go through 10 placement games to get placed in your designated rank. The placement games will allow Rocket League to determine how good you are and then place you with players of similar abilities. You have to do 10 matches per playlist, for a total of 30 games until you have three separate Rocket League ranks.

These modes are the three core playlists in the Rocket League ranking system because they are the foundation of Rocket League. While there are other modes in the game - more on those in a moment - 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 are typically what you see the pro players and content creators playing. In the Rocket League Championships, you see them playing 3v3 Standard, however you often see players such as Mariano "SquishyMuffinz" Arruda practising their freestyling skills on competitive 1v1. It's worth noting that these competitive Rocket League playlists differ from the casual playlists in-game too; leaving a match early without forfeiting comes with leaving penalties, and bots won't replace any players that do abandon the match.

Now that Rocket League is free-to-play, Pysonix removed a playlist called '3v3 Solo Standard', which allowed solo players to head into a 3v3 queue without fear of coming up against teams. Seemingly due to its lack of popularity, this playlist headed to the archives.

Rocket League Ranks: Extra Modes

Remember those other modes we mentioned above? These aren't competitive game modes but you can still get ranked in them after playing 10 games of each:

• 2v2 Hoops
• 3v3 Dropshot
• 3v3 Snow Day
• 3v3 Rumble

Despite not being competitive, these modes do still require a lot of skill. Especially in Dropshot and Hoops, aerial duels are key, and therefore they introduced ranks so that players with less skill weren’t being beaten to every ball by players who were much further advanced in this area.

Rocket League Ranks List

The Rocket League ranks you can achieve are:

• Unranked
• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Champion
• Grand Champion
• Supersonic Legend

Within each of the ranks, excluding Supersonic Legend, there are three tiers; I, II, and III. Within these tiers are four divisions which also use the roman numerals; I, II, III, and IV. This may sound confusing at first, but it's easy to get the hang of. For instance, upon ranking, it will display as Platinum II Division II, like the screenshot above.

The relatively new Supersonic Legend rank is one of the most welcome changes to Rocket League ranked since it was introduced. It was added to Rocket League at the same time the game went free-to-play, and the Supersonic Legend rank will really set the special players apart. The Grand Champion rank became saturated as players began to develop their skills, and the inclusion of a new tier has gone down a treat, giving the better players something to grind for. This rank doesn't use the tiered system though; once you hit Supersonic Legend, you're at the top.

Rocket League Ranks: MMR Explained

Ranking up in Rocket League is pretty simple; win matches and you'll progress through the ranks. Lose matches and you'll start falling. What the game doesn't show you however, is your MMR (matchmaking rank). This is a hidden score that you can only see for yourself in-game once you hit Grand Champion.

You can try to find out your Rocket League MMR before you hit Grand Champion by using something like a Rocket League tracker, which is a third party tool that offers more stat tracking than you'll find in-game. Individual performances like goals and assists don't affect your MMR; wins are the most important thing. You're matched up against opponents based on your MMR, not necessarily your in-game rank, although the two are closely related. If you beat an opponent with a higher MMR than you, you'll gain more points than if you beat someone lower than you. The same goes for losing to someone higher; less points will be lost compared to losing to someone lower.

Rocket League Ranks: Distribution

This is a hard question to answer, but we'll give it a go. What is the distribution of ranks across all competitive Rocket League players? The most recent official data we have to go on is a Reddit post from one of the Psyonix developers at the end of Season 1, right after the game went free-to-play last year.

This shows that Gold tends to be the most populated rank in each mode, but this came before the MMR was rejigged slightly. Using the same Rocket League tracker linked above, you can look at their skill rating distribution, that shows most players in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 are around Platinum III/Diamond I. While this data is unofficial, I'm suddenly less proud of my Platinum III rank...

Rocket League Ranks: Rewards

Your rank resets at the beginning of each new season, at which point you'll be unranked and need to play your 10 placement games in each playlist again. At the end of the season, you'll be given rewards based on the rank you finished at. These rewards can range from car decals to wheels, boosts, and other cosmetics that you can use to boast to your pals about your final placement. You also unlock all the rewards for the Rocket League ranks below you too, so if you finish in Gold, you'll get everything the Silver and Bronze players also get, although you probably will prefer using the highest tier rewards on your car. 

Rocket League Ranks: Why Not Just Play Casual?

In a nutshell, competitive Rocket League is much more enjoyable for those who love to win. It weighs a much higher importance on getting wins rather than just scoring freestyle goals. It’s not all about winning but this is a large factor. Having ranks to aim for and achieve sets players goals, and this is valued within the gaming community rather than just playing for the sake of it. It is also a great way to advance your skills and become the best Rocket League player that you can be.

Now you know all there is to know about Rocket League ranks, why not check out some of our other Rocket League guides below?

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