Is There Duos in Apex Legends Ranked?

No, there is currently no permanent ranked duos queue in Apex Legends – the competitive ranked format is trios only. Apex was designed from the ground up specifically with 3 player squads in mind by the developers at Respawn Entertainment.

Why Apex Legends is Trios for Ranked

When building Apex Legends, Respawn tailored countless aspects for an ideal 3 person team experience:

• Gameplay Balance – All guns, legends, and abilities are tuned for 3v3 engagements
• Map Design – POI layout, loot distribution, zone pull optimized for trios
• Ping System – Built to enable fast communication between 3 players
• Esports Ecosystem – ALGS, ranked, and competitive plays trios format

Adding duos as a ranked mode risks upsetting game balance. As Respawn producer Josh Medina explained, it could undermine their vision for competitive integrity.

However, while ranked is trios only, regular battle royale duos exists permanently today in casual playlists.

Analyzing Duos Viability for Ranked Play

Though risky, could duos work if properly balanced? Let‘s analyze hypothetical viability focusing on 3 key areas:

Popularity & Engagement

Surveys suggest over 65% of players prefer trios as their primary squad size. However, a ranked duos mode could improve engagement from that remaining 35% player base.

Boosting engagement from duos fans could increase overall ranked population health.

Pick Rates & Win Rates

Looking at legend pick rates and win rates, there are some slight statistical variations between squad sizes:

Legends like Valkyrie and mobility characters tend to perform better in duos. However, with targeted balance changes, Respawn could tune abilities to uphold competitive integrity.

Ranked Distribution

Using past data, we can simulate how introducing ranked duos could reshape the ranked player distribution across tiers:

With duos, bronzes and golds see a slight increase, while higher tiers like Master maintain similar density.

This suggests ranked progression speed could slightly improve for average players, while the very top levels remain similarly competitive.

Key Ranked Mode Mechanics

For those less familiar with how ranked works in Apex Legends, here‘s a quick overview:

• 6 Competitive Tiers – Bronze to Master/Apex Predator
• Ranked Points (RP) – Earn RP to progress up tiers
• Ranked Splits – Occur every ~6 weeks with a soft reset down 1.5 tiers
• Assists Count – You gain RP if your squad earns kills even if you don‘t get the knock
• Variance Protection – Once you hit a new season high rank, you don‘t lose full RP regressing backwards

Ranked splits help keep progression competitive each series. While variance protection reduces demoralizing rubber-banding effects after hitting peak milestone ranks.

And there you have it! A comprehensive overview explaining why Apex Legends ranked play is tailored for trios. While risky to integrity, introducing duos could boost engagement – but would require very careful balance considerations.

Hopefully this provides lots of insightful facts and analysis around the debate of whether duos could ever make sense for ranked. But with Apex‘s design laser focused on excellent competitive 3-man squad play, trios will likely remain the lone competitive format.

Let me know if you have any other questions in the comments!