Apex Legends Season 31 Ranked Guide: How to Rotate, Fight and Gain RP on Storm Point, E-District Night and Broken Moon

You gain RP in Season 31 the same way you did last season: finish in the top five and only take fights you can close, because the higher you place, the more each kill is worth. What's new is around the edges. The ranked maps are Storm Point, E-District Night and Broken Moon, a squad far above its lobby pays 50% more to play, and from Diamond up two Legends get banned every match.

This guide is about the climb itself in Apex Legends ranked: how a good Season 31 game actually goes, map by map, from the drop to the last ring. It's written for Season 31: Cipher, which started on 3 November 2026, and the ranked facts come from Respawn's Cipher patch notes (2 November), its Ranked Roadmap (20 October) and EA's ranked help page. For the full list of what changed this season, read our Apex Legends Season 31 breakdown. If you're new to tiers and entry costs, start with the Apex Legends ranked guide and come back.

Key takeaways

• Kill and placement RP work as they did in Season 30. The real scoring rework is planned for Season 32.
• Check the Lobby Tier when you load in. As a Goliath you pay 50% more to enter, so a hot drop and an early death hurt even more.
• Storm Point is about Gravity Cannons and long rotations. E-District Night is about rooftops and short, sudden fights. Broken Moon is about Zip Rails and crossing open ground on your terms.
• From Diamond up, two Legends are banned each match. Have a second Legend in the same role you can play without thinking.
• Strongholds drop as Round 2 closes. Only fight for one if your squad is already near it and healthy.

How does RP work in Season 31 ranked?

Season 31 doesn't change how kills and placement are scored. Respawn's patch notes only change entry costs for lopsided lobbies, and its roadmap saves the big scoring overhaul for Season 32 in early 2027. So the rules on EA's ranked help page still decide your climb:

Two things are new and worth using. RP now shows in the kill feed, so you see what each kill was worth as it happens. There is also a Ranked tab in your inventory that lists the scoring rules mid-match. When your squad is fully eliminated, the game shows the placement RP you earned, and the Net RP display turns red if you finished down.

Here's what that looks like in practice. Say you're in Platinum and your squad drops into a fight at the first ring, wins it for three kills and then dies in 14th to the team that heard the gunfire. Those kills were scored at 14th place. Play the same game differently: loot quietly, rotate early, take one clean fight in Round 3 and one in the last two rings, and finish 4th with the same three kills. Every one of those kills is multiplied by 4th place, and a top-five finish starts your streak bonus. Same kills, very different RP.

Next match: open the Ranked tab once during your first loot and read the rules for yourself. After the game, look at the placement RP message and ask what one more ring of survival would have been worth.

Challenger and Goliath lobbies: read the tag before you drop

Every Season 31 ranked lobby now has a Lobby Tier, the median of all the squads in it. Your squad's tier is the average RP of its three players, except that a premade squad counts everyone at the highest member's RP. If a teammate never connects, your squad tier drops one full tier.

Respawn says these should be uncommon and mostly happen outside peak hours. You'll feel them most if you queue late at night or play with friends from very different ranks.

Here's how a Goliath game goes wrong. You're a Diamond player duoing with a Gold friend late at night, and you queue into a lobby that sits two tiers below your squad. You drop the hottest POI because "it's a Gold lobby". You win the first fight, a third team catches you mid-heal, and you're out in 16th. That match cost you half again the normal Diamond entry, and the kills you took were scored at 16th place.

The fix is boring and it works. As a Goliath, land one POI off the flight path, loot a full kit, and treat your first two rings like you're the underdog. Your squad is better than the lobby, so the late game is where that shows. As a Challenger, the reverse is true: entry is cheaper, so a bold early play costs you less if it goes wrong.

Next match: look at the match type when you load in, before you call the drop. If it says Goliath, say "we land safe" in the lobby and mean it.

Storm Point: rotate with the Gravity Cannons, not against them

Storm Point is the biggest of the three Season 31 ranked maps, and it plays like it. There is only one jump tower, at Highpoint, so most long rotations go through the Gravity Cannons, which launch your squad along a fixed path with your weapons ready. Command Center also has the longest vertical ziplines in the game, which take you to the top of the mountain.

What that means for your rotation: every squad near a cannon knows where it lands. Fire one late, toward a ring that has already closed in, and you fly straight into a team that's been holding the landing for a minute.

Picture a typical Storm Point game. You land at Checkpoint, loot it out, and the first ring pulls across the map, away from you. You have two options. You can loot the rest of Checkpoint, then cannon across at the last second. Or you can leave with half the POI unlooted, walk the high ground while the ring is still far away, and take the cannon while nobody is watching its landing. The second squad shows up with fewer batteries and a lot more RP at the end of the game.

Rules that help on Storm Point:

• Plan two rings ahead. The map is big enough that a late rotation from one edge to the other can cost you most of a ring's worth of time in the open.
• Use cannons to reach a position, not a fight. Aim to land on the edge of the next zone with buildings or a ridge to take, then stop and look.
• Watch the cannon landings when you hold. If your squad is set up near a landing zone, you'll hear and see squads flying in. A team in the air is an easy target, and it lands exactly where you expect.
• Don't fight on the beaches. The coast has long, flat sightlines and little hard cover. If you have to cross it, do it before the ring forces everyone else to.

Next match on Storm Point: before you leave your first POI, ping the cannon you'll take and the building you'll hold after it. Leave as soon as everyone has a gun, armour and heals.

E-District Night: hold height, clear rooms, rotate late but short

E-District is a dense urban map: tall buildings, lots of interiors, short sightlines and constant vertical fights. In Season 31 it runs as E-District Night. Respawn's notes describe a lighting pass that balances silhouette contrast and reduces visual noise, so enemies should be easier to pick out against the dark. It's still worth checking your brightness and colour settings before your first ranked game on it.

The usual mistake on E-District is treating it like Storm Point. Rotations here are short, and a team that moves at the right moment can cross half the map through buildings and streets without being seen. But almost every rotation passes under someone else's roof. City Hall, near the northwest, is one of the highest-loot POIs on the map, which makes it a popular drop and a dangerous early-game place to be in a Goliath lobby.

A typical E-District endgame: the ring closes on the streets around Neon Square. Two teams are already inside the tall buildings. Your squad is in the open on the street level, so you have two choices: take a building or take a corner nobody is watching. You don't push the building with the most windows, because that's where the other teams are looking. You take a smaller building at the side of the next zone, clear every room on the way in, and hold the stairs. Then you let the two teams on the roofs fight each other and clean up the winner.

Rules that help on E-District Night:

• Hold height or hold a door, never the street. A squad on the street is visible to every roof around it.
• Clear rooms as a team. One player opens the door, one clears the corner, one watches behind. Splitting up inside buildings is how teams get knocked one at a time.
• Stay close to your squad. A teammate who looks close on the map can be three floors up and behind two walls, too far away to help in a fight that lasts seconds.
• Fight from inside, heal behind walls. Interior fights are quick. Win one, then heal and swap batteries before you look out a window again.

Next match on E-District Night: pick the building you'll hold for the next ring before the ring starts closing, and walk there through interiors, not open streets.

Broken Moon: own the Zip Rails and the open ground

Broken Moon is a map of open ground between POIs, with Zip Rails that let a squad cross those stretches quickly. That makes it the map where rotation timing matters most. A squad on a rail is fast, but it's also predictable and exposed. Eternal Gardens, on the western edge, is one of its highest-loot zones, and the rest of the map includes places like Breaker Wharf, Atmostation, The Core, Stasis Array and the Promenade.

Here's how a Broken Moon game is lost. Your squad has a great early game, 4 kills by the second ring, all in one building. The ring pulls to the other side of an open plain. You wait for the last moment, then run across it. Two teams that rotated early are already in position on the other side, and you lose two players before reaching cover. That's 4 kills scored at whatever place you finish, which won't be high.

The squad that wins the same game leaves the building a minute earlier, uses a Zip Rail to reach a rock cluster or building on the edge of the next zone, and lets the late squads run across the open ground into them.

Rules that help on Broken Moon:

• Rotate early by default. The longer you wait, the more open ground you cross in front of teams already set up.
• Use rails for distance, not entry. Get off before you reach the fight, then walk in from cover.
• Mobility Legends matter here. A grapple, a portal or a fast reposition is worth more on Broken Moon than on the other two maps. Our guide to the best Apex Legends for each ranked map has picks for each map.
• Count the teams on your side. Before you settle into a position, check which squads are already near the next zone. If two teams are already there, rotate along the edge instead of straight to the centre.

Next match on Broken Moon: leave your POI at the first ring warning, not when the timer runs out. If you see open ground between you and the next zone, cross it while it's still empty.

Which fights should you take in Season 31?

Take a fight when you can finish it before another team arrives, and walk away from everything else. In ranked, a fight you win in 40 seconds is worth more than a long fight you only half-win, because the third team doesn't care who started it.

A quick test before you push. Ask three questions:

1. Can we see all three of them? If you've only seen one, assume the other two are somewhere you don't want them to be.
2. Is anyone else close? Gunfire on the other side of the hill means a team nearby, and they'll be coming your way when they hear you.
3. Do we have a way out? If the fight goes wrong, where do you go? A building, a rail, a cannon or high ground counts.

If the answer to any of them is no, hold your position and look for a better fight.

Season 31 changes a few things you'll notice in gunfights. The L-STAR is back on the floor, with less damage (19 per shot instead of 21) and overheating after 22 shots. The Hemlok Burst AR is back as a burst and single-fire rifle, the Peacekeeper fires faster, and the Wingman now uses Heavy ammo and can be dual-wielded as the Akimbo Wingman. Burst weapons now queue tap-fire, so the Prowler, Nemesis and Hemlok bursts fire your next shot if you tap a little early.

Lifeline's Tactical now has a 15-second cooldown and a Level 3 Revive Shield, so expect squads with a Lifeline to get players back up mid-fight. If you knock a player next to a Lifeline, push the revive, not the healing player behind cover.

Our Apex Legends fighting fundamentals guide covers the gunfight itself: cover, peeking, swapping batteries and when to push after a knock.

Next match: before every push, ask the three questions out loud on comms. If your squad gets used to them, you'll stop throwing games to third parties.

Strongholds: when to fight for one

Strongholds are new in Season 31: a locked bunker that drops as Round 2 closes, alongside the care package that drops then. To open it, your squad has to be the only team in the zone around it. If two teams are in the zone, capture is contested, and progress never decays. Inside are a care package weapon, three gold guns, three Amps and two corrupted attachments, and each living member of the capturing team gets a Level Up.

Respawn's notes describe Strongholds for the Apex Games without listing any ranked exception, so plan for them to appear in ranked. They are new, though, so check your first few games.

In ranked, the Stronghold is bait. Every squad nearby sees it drop, and the zone around it becomes a fight between whoever arrives first and whoever arrives second.

A good Stronghold call: it lands 100 metres from the building your squad is already holding at the edge of the next zone. You're all full health. You clear the area, capture it, take the loot and move straight back to cover.

A bad Stronghold call: it lands across the map. You leave your position, cross open ground, find two teams already fighting over it, and lose your position and your squad on the way.

Next match: when the Stronghold drops, look at the map before saying anything. If it isn't close to where you were already going, let the other teams fight for it and get ready to clean up whoever wins.

Endgames: how to play the last three rings

From the third ring, every decision is about where you'll be when the zone closes. Placement is now worth more than any one kill. A clean endgame looks like this:

• Get to the next zone first. The team that arrives first chooses its building or ridge. The team that arrives last fights in the open.
• Take the edge, not the centre. At the edge of the zone, you only have enemies on one side. In the centre, you have enemies all around you.
• Let other teams fight. If two teams start fighting nearby, wait until one wins, then push the team that's left with no shields.
• Keep your utility. Save smoke, a portal or a grapple to rotate into the final ring or escape a bad position. Using your Ultimate early to win a fight you didn't need can lose you the endgame.
• Count teams in the kill feed. Know how many squads are left. With four teams left, you're already in the top five, and your streak bonus is in play.

Here's a typical final ring on Storm Point. Four teams are left. Your squad is holding a small building at the edge of the zone. One team is on the ridge above, the other two are in the open below. The ring closes toward the ridge. You don't push the ridge team, because they have height. You wait until the two teams below start fighting, then push the winner as they heal. Two of the other three teams are now gone, and you're in the top two without taking a bad fight.

For more on endgame positioning and late rotations, our Apex Legends rotation and positioning guide covers mid-zone to edge play and third-party timing.

Next match: in the final three rings, before any fight, say out loud where you'll be when the next ring closes.

Legend picks when two Legends get banned

From Diamond up, every ranked match starts with a Banning Phase. Each player requests one Legend to ban, and each Legend's chance of being banned equals its share of the requests. The game currently bans two Legends per match. If players request fewer than four different Legends, last week's most-played Legends each get one request added. Banned Legends can't be picked by anyone in that match.

What this means for your climb: the Legends that most Diamond and Master players play are the ones most likely to be banned. At the end of Season 30, Loba and Pathfinder were the most-picked Legends among Master and Predator players. Our Season 30 tier list has the pick rates. We don't have Season 31 pick-rate data yet, and Loba was nerfed for Cipher, but expect the most popular Legends to be banned more often than anything else.

The answer is a Legend pool, not a main:

Pick two from the row that matches your role and get comfortable with both. Play the Legend you know well over the one that looks best on paper.

Picture this. You're a Pathfinder main in Diamond. Pathfinder gets banned. Your squad has 20 seconds to pick, and you go to Octane, who you've played twice. You make a mistake on the first rotation and the squad dies to the team you were trying to avoid. That's the RP you lost to the ban. The fix is simple: play ten games of your backup Legend in pubs before you queue ranked.

You can also use your own ban request. If one Legend beats your squad's style every match, request it. One request won't ban it, but more requests raise its chance.

Next match: agree in the lobby who plays what if one of your picks is banned. Have that conversation once, and you won't need it during Legend Selection.

Solo queue in Season 31: what changes

Most Season 31 ranked games for solo players are the same as last season, with one difference: Legend Bans can take your Legend from Diamond up, and your random teammates won't plan a backup with you.

What works for solo players:

• Ping the plan early. Ping where you'll rotate before the ring starts closing. A squad with a plan follows it more often than a squad with three different ones.
• Pick a Legend that helps any team. A support, a mobility pick or smoke helps a squad you can't talk to.
• Follow a reasonable call. If your teammate pings a rotation that's not perfect but not bad, go with it. Three players together beat three players with three good plans.

Our solo queue to Master guide covers the habits that work without voice chat.

Season 31 ranked dates and what's coming next

Each ladder runs Tuesday to Sunday, and your score is your five best RP results that week. Respawn hasn't announced split dates or a second ranked map rotation for Season 31, so we'll update this guide when it does.

Season 32 changes ranked properly: Iron replaces Rookie, Emerald sits between Platinum and Diamond, Grandmaster becomes the top rank, and every kill your team gets counts for everyone. That's in early 2027. Until then, the Season 31 climb is about placement, fight choice and rotations.

Short on time for the climb?

If you'd rather reach your target rank without playing every game yourself, an Apex Legends rank boost is played by hand by high-ranked players, from your current rank to the one you choose.

FAQ

How do you gain RP fast in Apex Season 31?

Finish in the top five and take only fights you can finish. Placement multiplies the value of every kill, assist and participation, so surviving one more ring usually earns more than an extra early kill. Top-five streaks add a bonus of 10 to 40 RP.

What are the ranked maps in Apex Season 31?

Storm Point, E-District Night and Broken Moon. Respawn's Cipher patch notes list them as the ranked rotation from 3 November 2026 and haven't announced a second rotation yet.

Did RP scoring change in Season 31?

Not for kills or placement. The only scoring change is entry cost: Challenger squads pay 30% less and Goliath squads pay 50% more. Respawn's bigger scoring rework, where every team kill counts fully for everyone, is planned for Season 32.

What is a Goliath match in Apex ranked?

A match where your squad is two or more tiers above the lobby's median tier. Your entry cost goes up by 50%, so dying early costs more than usual. Play the first rings safely and rely on your advantage in the late game.

How do Legend Bans work in Apex ranked?

From Diamond up, each player requests one Legend to ban before Legend Selection. Each Legend's chance of being banned equals its share of the requests, and the game currently bans two Legends per match. Banned Legends can't be picked by anyone that match.

Do Strongholds appear in ranked?

Respawn's notes describe Strongholds for the Apex Games without a ranked exception, so expect them. A Stronghold drops as Round 2 closes and opens for the only squad left in its zone. Fight for it only if it's near your position and your squad is healthy.