I thought I was good in Deadlock, but its unexpected ranking distribution has shown me that I'm not even mid

Valve announced the new ranked mode in Deadlock a few weeks ago. It grouped players into eleven ranks, each with six levels. To earn a rank in Deadlock, players need to complete seven games each week by Tuesday. I spent hours playing matches to get my rank and then found out I wasn't as good as I thought.

The first rank that I achieved in Deadlock is Ritualist 3. This is, to give you a sense of context, just below the middle ranking of Emissary. The ranks are: Initiate (seeker), Alchemist (arcanist), Ritualist (Emissary), Archon and Archon. The top four ranks, Oracle Phantom Ascendant and Eternus are considered to be hyper-competitive.

Ritualist was nothing special, but it wasn't too bad for someone that had never played a Moba. I was happy to be at what I considered a mid-skilled level and was content to stay there for the moment. According to this week's ranking distribution, I am not as good as thought.

Deadlock's rank distribution is higher than normal. Competitive games tend to be bottom-heavy with the average player at a lower rank.

Overwatch 2 is a good example. It is thought that the average ranking is Gold. This is because it has the most players. While Platinum has many players as well, they are all above the 50th per centile point. As the ranks are Bronze, Silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master, grandmaster, champion (which is a brand new rank), then Top 500 is rare, it is hard to get into the higher ranks.

I thought I would be ranked at the top of the list for Ritualist because it was positioned around mid-range, but I was mistaken. There are only about 18,724 players below me and a whopping 5,5638 players above me. Imagine finding out you're lower than mid on Wednesday morning.

Archon has the largest population with 17,386 players. Below this, Emissary is next with 11,704 players and Ritualist is next with 11,250. Oracle has 10,884 players above Archon. Phantom has 11,987. You can tell if you are better or worse than the average by comparing your rank to Archon. If you're curious, here are all the ranks and player counts:

• Initiate : 8,897 players
• Seeker: 3,974 players
• Alchemist: 5,853 players
• Arcanist: 5,913 Players
• Ritualist: 11 250 players
• Emissary: 11,704 players
• Archon: 17,386 Players
• Oracle: 10,884 players
• Phantom: 11,987 Players
• Ascendant: 3,717 Players
• Eternus: 414 players

Deadlock's bell curve is higher than other competitive games. But that's not surprising, considering this is only the third week of ranked play. The developers have said that ranked play is going to be fluid until they master matchmaking. Developer Yoshi says that medals will be updated only once a week in order to analyze a large set of match data at once and provide a more accurate assessment of your skills.

The curve could be descending a bit as there are more players below Archon this week than last. One player says, "A lot of people were demoted as evidenced by the sharp increase in players below Archon." "[On the contrary] Phantom has seen a huge increase of players." I suspect that there are still players who play only the minimum number to 'preserve their ranks'.

According to gammaton32, in a Reddit thread, this slightly odd distribution also means that the rarest rank is Seeker 1 behind Eternus. As time passes, hopefully the ranks will settle into something more predictable and stable. But I like the idea that the second-rarest ranking in the game is one of the worst. I'd definitely tune into a challenge stream for Ascendant to Finder 1.