Apex Legends Ranked Matchmaking: Why Premades Win More and What's Changing in Season 31

Apex Legends players queuing into Ranked alone have long suspected that stacking up with two friends is a built-in advantage. Respawn Entertainment just confirmed it with real numbers — and ran two experiments to try to fix it. The results, published by Respawn on September 30, 2026, explain why a premade trio wins far more often than three strangers, why the studio's first fixes didn't work the way it hoped, and what's actually changing in Ranked over the next two seasons.

Here is what the data showed, why neither test became permanent, and what to expect heading into Season 31 and Season 32.

1. Why Respawn Started Testing Ranked Matchmaking

Respawn's own framing for the project was blunt: "Ranked Matchmaking only works if you trust it." The studio's internal data, pulled from Platinum-and-above lobbies, showed a clear gap in win rate tied directly to squad composition.

• A premade duo paired with a random solo fill won about 19 percentage points more often than a squad of three solo players.
• A full premade trio won about 17 percentage points more often than three solos.
• At the Masters rank, 85% of squads were already full three-stack premades.

In other words, the higher a player climbs, the more Ranked turns into coordinated teams facing off against solo players — exactly the trust problem Respawn said it set out to fix.

2. Test 1: Restricting Premades to a Single Rank Tier

The first experiment limited who could queue together. Instead of letting squadmates be up to two rank tiers apart, Respawn temporarily restricted premade groups to within a single tier of each other.

The measurable effect was small. Diamond players ended up facing roughly 8% fewer Diamond-ranked opponents and about 8% more Platinum opponents, since wider-tier premades could no longer bring a lower-ranked friend into tougher lobbies. Platinum players saw a corresponding rise in Diamond opponents. Every other tier saw no meaningful change.

Respawn's conclusion was that the gain was too marginal to justify restricting everyone who simply wants to queue with a friend of a different skill level, so the one-tier limit is not becoming permanent.

3. Test 2: Forcing Solo Queue at Diamond, Master and Predator

The second, larger experiment removed premades entirely at the top of the ladder. For a set period, players ranked Diamond, Master or Predator could only queue into Ranked alone.

Win-rate results barely moved. Diamond's match outcomes stayed close to normal, and in Masters lobbies the gap between the ten best-performing squads and the ten worst held steady at 9%, with only a slight dip in the very top squads' win rate.

Why solo queue made lobbies feel scarier

Removing premades changed who players ran into, even without changing who won. Apex's matchmaker splits a pool of 60 similarly-rated players into thirds and builds each squad with one player from each third. With premades banned, top-ranked players could no longer stack together — they were spread one per squad instead, so more individual matches ended up containing at least one Master or Predator player.

Respawn also flagged a related display problem: the pre-match squad screen shows a lobby with one Masters player identically to a lobby with three Predators, even though the actual opponent makeup is very different. That made solo-queue lobbies look far more intimidating than they statistically were.

The pool shrank

The clearest casualty of forced solo queue was player retention. Return rate — whether a player queued into Ranked again — fell most sharply among Diamond-and-above players who were used to teaming up.

Respawn said that scale of drop-off was "unacceptable" because it shrank the overall Ranked player pool rather than just rebalancing it, which defeats the point of the experiment.

4. Why Neither Test Is Becoming Permanent

Both changes are being shelved in their tested form. The one-tier premade restriction moved the needle too little to be worth the friction it added for groups of friends at different skill levels. The Diamond-and-above solo queue requirement barely changed who won, made lobbies look more stacked than they were, and pushed a meaningful share of experienced duo and trio players away from Ranked entirely.

Respawn's stated goal going forward is narrower than an outright premade ban: reduce how often solo and smaller groups run into fully coordinated, top-tier three-stacks, without stopping players from queuing with their actual friends.

5. What This Means If You Queue Solo

Nothing in your actual matches changed because of these tests — both were time-limited and have already ended — but the underlying numbers are still useful context for anyone grinding Ranked alone right now.

• If you're regularly facing squads that rotate and third-party more efficiently than you'd expect, the data backs up that instinct: at Platinum and above, premade trios and duo-plus-fill squads really do win noticeably more often than three strangers.
• The "scarier lobby" effect Respawn described is partly a display issue, not just a skill issue — a lobby with one Masters player and a lobby with three Predators currently look identical on the pre-match screen, so don't assume every tough-looking lobby is actually stacked against you.
• Respawn is prioritizing keeping the Ranked player pool healthy over forcing strict solo-only play, so a permanent solo-queue mode at high ranks looks unlikely based on these results.

6. What's Coming in Season 31 and Season 32

Respawn says it is preparing further matchmaking tests and will share specifics closer to when they go live. The studio confirmed that the biggest resulting changes to Ranked will roll out across Season 31 and Season 32, with more detail promised in October 2026. The team also said it will keep iterating on the pre-match skill display so lobbies communicate the real threat level more clearly, rather than treating one Masters player the same as a full Predator stack.

For now, Ranked's existing structure — covered in full in our Ranked Mode explainer — remains unchanged. These were time-limited tests, not live patches, so nothing about current Ranked Points, splits or rewards shifted as a result.

7. Quick-Tips Recap

• Premade squads genuinely do win more: roughly 19 points more for a duo-plus-solo-fill, 17 points more for a full trio, at Platinum and above.
• Respawn tested a one-tier premade rank restriction — scrapped, too little impact.
• Respawn tested banning premades above Diamond — scrapped, it barely changed outcomes and drove players away from Ranked.
• No changes have shipped yet. Expect the real Ranked matchmaking changes in Season 31 and Season 32, with more detail due in October 2026.
• If you're grinding Ranked solo right now, nothing about your current experience has changed — these were time-boxed tests only.

8. Official Resources

• Respawn's full "Breaking Down Matchmaking Test Results" post on EA.com
• Apex Legends official site
• Apex Legends on Steam

For more on how the current rank system works, see our Apex Legends beginner's guide and our breakdown of the Marked Midseason legend changes. For everything else we've covered across games, visit our full walkthrough archive.