Deadlock Ranked Season 2 starts on Thursday, November 5, 2026, immediately after Season 1 finishes. Valve confirmed the date when it extended the first Ranked season in its October 6 announcement.
If you’re trying to fit in one last climb, the deadline is the important bit. There’s also a catch with Valve’s announced time, plus some unanswered questions about placements and rank resets. Here’s what you need to know before the season changes.
Deadlock Ranked Season 2 start date and Season 1 deadline
Season 1 ends on November 5, with the next Ranked season beginning immediately afterwards. Valve originally planned to end Season 1 on October 7, but pushed it back by nearly a month. If you’ve seen an October deadline elsewhere, it’s the old one.
The November 5 date comes directly from Valve. However, the precise hour needs explaining before you use it to plan your last few matches.
What time does Deadlock Ranked Season 2 start worldwide?
Valve wrote 2pm PDT for November 5. That’s an awkward time-zone label: daylight saving time ended in the US on November 1, meaning Los Angeles will be on PST that Thursday. If Valve meant 2pm local Pacific time, the changeover would be at 10pm GMT in the UK, or 22:00 UTC.
These are the times for 2pm PST on November 5, not a separately confirmed worldwide schedule. If Valve intended 2pm PDT literally, the switch would happen one hour earlier. Check any newer time shown in-game before planning around the last hour of Season 1.
| Location | If the change happens at 2pm PST |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles (PST) | Thursday, November 5, 2pm |
| New York (EST) | Thursday, November 5, 5pm |
| UK (GMT) | Thursday, November 5, 10pm |
| Central Europe (CET) | Thursday, November 5, 11pm |
| Singapore (SGT) | Friday, November 6, 6am |
| Japan (JST) | Friday, November 6, 7am |
| Sydney (AEDT) | Friday, November 6, 9am |
For Deadlock Ranked Season 2, the date is settled. It’s only the one-hour difference in Valve’s time-zone wording that needs clarification.
Will ranks reset in Deadlock Ranked Season 2?
Valve has not published specific Season 2 reset or placement rules in the announcements checked. You may see people talking about eight calibration matches and a soft reset, but those details come from the July 30 launch of Season 1.
Back then, everyone had eight calibration games, and Valve used some previous performance history to seed players after a soft reset. The highest rank you could receive straight out of calibration was Oracle VI, and calibration games had to be played solo. Those rules explain how Season 1 began; they haven’t been confirmed again for Deadlock Ranked Season 2.
There’s no announced answer on whether current Rank Points carry across, whether every player recalibrates, or how high returning players could initially place. Don’t treat an old calibration rule as a new-season guarantee.
What happens to your Season 1 rank before Deadlock Ranked Season 2?
Your highest rank from the season is the part Valve has said will last. Once a season finishes, your personal best is permanently saved in Rank History, which you can open through the Ranked Hub in your Hideout.
Valve also announced a Hideout item commemorating your highest rank for the season. That doesn’t mean a particular character skin or currency reward has been promised. The July announcement describes a commemorative item, without setting out a separate list of Deadlock Ranked Season 2 rewards.
If you’re close to a new personal best, the end of Season 1 is your chance to reach it before that season’s result is recorded. A better badge earned now matters for your saved history even though the next season’s reset details are still unclear.
How do you unlock Deadlock Ranked Season 2?
Under the rules Valve introduced on July 30, you need 60 wins in Standard Mode to enter Ranked. You also need at least three eligible heroes, and each hero must have at least 15 Standard Mode wins before you can select them in Ranked.
Ranked uses its own queue, separate from Standard. The July system allowed solo players and duos, with duo partners generally required to be within one full rank of each other. Eternus players had stricter rules: they could only queue with another Eternus player within three subranks. These are the published eligibility and party rules to check against the Ranked Hub when Deadlock Ranked Season 2 goes live.
You can find your current rank, progress, seasonal history and leaderboards in the Ranked Hub in the Hideout. If the game shows updated requirements after the season changes, follow those rather than a guide written before the rollout.
When does Deadlock Ranked Season 2 end?
Valve hasn’t announced a Season 2 end date. It previously said future Ranked seasons would probably last longer and could include splits, but didn’t confirm how that would apply to the season beginning November 5. For now, the only firm dates are the end of Season 1 and the immediate start of the next one.
Official source: Valve’s official Deadlock announcements on Steam.
