“Top 500 has been upgraded to Challenger Tier.”
Overwatch 2’s Season 20 has launched, bringing significant updates to the Competitive Play mode. Here’s what you need to know.
Overwatch 2 Challenger Tier explained
So, the new update completely changes how ranked works in Overwatch 2! It’s basically a season-long competition to see who the best players are. They’re also giving out way better rewards for climbing the ranks. The biggest change? They’ve created a ‘Challenger Tier’ for top 500 tank players, and there’s a new leaderboard for it based on something called ‘Challenger Score’. You can actually see your Challenger Score on your profile and when you’re checking your competitive progress, which is pretty cool!
Overwatch 2 is making major changes to its Top 500 leaderboard, now called the Challengers Tier. According to game producer Sivonne Ward, the goal is to make reaching and staying in the Top 500 a continuous, season-long competition, discouraging players from simply maintaining their rank without actively playing.
Starting now, winning matches will earn you a Challenger Score based on your rank, and the leaderboard will be sorted by this score. Players who have reached the Challenger Tier will also be able to connect their social media accounts. We’re launching this feature with a limited group of players in Season 20, but plan to include more in future seasons.
Overwatch 2 Challenger Score explained
Players earn Challenger Score points by winning matches at the Diamond 5 rank or higher in regular competitive play, or at the All-Star 5 rank or higher in Stadium mode. The amount of points earned is based on the rank of the highest-ranked player in the match. Losing a match at these ranks reduces the potential Challenger Score earned by 33%, but the highest-ranked player’s rank doesn’t affect the score reduction for losses.
Okay, so here’s how the Challenger Score works: it always goes back to zero when a new season starts. But, the cool thing is, the more weeks in a row you play, you get a little boost – about 5% extra each week. Just a heads-up, it doesn’t count in the standard, wide-rule matches, but it does work separately for Open Queue and the Stadium leaderboards, which is awesome!
Blizzard announced that the Challenger Score you earn while playing in Role Queue will count towards both the leaderboards for your specific role and the overall combined leaderboard.
To show up on the leaderboards, players need to reach a certain score, which is detailed below.
| Leaderboard | Challenger Score Requirement | Additional Requirement(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Combined | 5,000 | Endorsement Level 2 |
| Open Queue | 5,000 | Endorsement Level 2 |
| Stadium | 5,000 | Endorsement Level 2 and 25 wins |
| Each Role in Core 5v5 and Stadium | 4,000 | Endorsement Level 2 |
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2025-12-09 22:11