- Game
- Overwatch (called Overwatch 2 until February 2026)
- Rank
- Emerald, fifth of nine Competitive skill tiers, between Platinum and Diamond
- Added
- August 11, 2026, with Reign of Talon Season 4: Heroes of Busan
- Divisions
- Five: Emerald 5 (lowest) to Emerald 1 (highest)
- Rewards
- Emerald titles and weapon charms
- Developer and publisher
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Current as of
- November 2, 2026 (Season 5: A Grim Doctrine)
- Source
- Blizzard's August 11, 2026 patch notes; distribution from Blizzard's July 2025 chart; the Emerald SR band is player-reported, not a Blizzard figure
Emerald wasn't carved out of one rank. Blizzard's notes say the redistribution "primarily focuses on moving players that were Platinum and Diamond into Emerald", and the same patch made the highest Champion divisions more exclusive. Players comparing Hero SR on Blizzard's forums report that Emerald starts at 2,500, where Platinum used to begin, and that every tier below it moved down 500. Before it arrived, Blizzard's own chart put 66.6% of ranked players in just two tiers.
What is Emerald rank in Overwatch?
Emerald is a skill tier in Overwatch's Competitive Play that sits directly above Platinum and directly below Diamond. Like every other tier, it has five divisions: you enter at Emerald 5 and the step after Emerald 1 is Diamond 5. Blizzard's August 11, 2026 patch notes list it under the heading "New Skill Tier - Emerald (Ranks Redistributed)" and add that Emerald titles and weapon charms came with it.
Overwatch launched as Overwatch 2 on October 4, 2022, and Blizzard dropped the number when Season 1 of 2026 began on February 10, saying it was "officially dropping the '2'". It's the same game and the same Competitive mode, so Emerald applies whether you still call it Overwatch 2 or not.
Where does Emerald sit in the Overwatch rank order?
Emerald is fifth of nine tiers, counted from the bottom. The SR bands come from players on Blizzard's forums; Blizzard publishes only the 0 to 5000 Hero SR scale.
| Order | Skill tier | Divisions | Hero SR (player-reported) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bronze | 5 to 1 | 0 to 999 | Lowest tier |
| 2 | Silver | 5 to 1 | 1,000 to 1,499 | |
| 3 | Gold | 5 to 1 | 1,500 to 1,999 | 31.7% of players on Blizzard's July 2025 chart |
| 4 | Platinum | 5 to 1 | 2,000 to 2,499 | 34.9% on the same chart, the largest tier |
| 5 | Emerald | 5 to 1 | 2,500 to 2,999 | Added August 11, 2026 (Season 4) |
| 6 | Diamond | 5 to 1 | 3,000 to 3,499 | Diamond or above unlocks the 2026 Crimson Wolf Doomfist skin |
| 7 | Master | 5 to 1 | 3,500 to 3,999 | |
| 8 | Grandmaster | 5 to 1 | 4,000 to 4,499 | |
| 9 | Champion | 5 to 1 | 4,500 to 5,000 | Added in Season 9, February 13, 2024 |
Top 500 Challenger isn't a tier: it's a 500-player leaderboard. Since Season 5 it's sorted by Rank by default, and Challenger Score only decides who makes the list.
When and why did Overwatch add Emerald?
Emerald arrived on August 11, 2026, the launch day of Reign of Talon Season 4: Heroes of Busan, the season that also added the Tank hero D.Mon. Blizzard's reason, in the patch notes' own words: "As we've shown in the past, the majority of our players are in Gold and Platinum, so adding a new Rank closer to the middle of the skill curve gives many players a better sense of Rank identity, a new goal to achieve, and increases fidelity in assessing skill for many players."
Two tiers held two thirds of the ladder, so a Platinum badge covered a wide spread of skill; a tier in that range splits the crowd and gives those players a nearer milestone.
Emerald isn't simply "the new Platinum" or "the new Diamond". The notes describe a redistribution that moved players who had been Platinum and Diamond into Emerald, and the same patch made the top Champion divisions "more exclusive". They don't describe a rank reset or ask for new placement matches. The last full reset was at the start of Season 1 on February 10, 2026, when every Role Queue and Open Queue rank went back to Unranked with 10 placement matches per role.
How many players are in Emerald? Rank distribution explained
Blizzard hasn't published a rank distribution that includes Emerald. What it added instead, in the same patch, is a Rank Distribution Indicator in the Competitive Overview that "shows how your Rank compares to all other players in a given queue". That in-game screen is the only official read on where an Emerald rank stands today.
The most recent official chart is older. Blizzard's Weekly Recall: Meet Your Matchmaker post from July 18, 2025 showed Bronze 2.4%, Silver 12.6%, Gold 31.7%, Platinum 34.9%, Diamond 14.9%, Master 3.2%, Grandmaster 0.3% and Champion under 0.1%.
Those numbers predate two changes. Five weeks after that chart, Season 18 (August 26, 2025) retuned Master, Grandmaster and Champion "to include a higher percentage of the player population", and Emerald then took players from both Platinum and Diamond. Some rank guides publish an Emerald percentage; none of those figures come from Blizzard.
What SR is Emerald in Overwatch?
Blizzard doesn't publish an SR range for Emerald, because your Competitive rank isn't shown as a number at all. Its July 2025 matchmaking post explains that "while you see your MMR as a labeled skill tier, such as Diamond 3, we view it internally as a data point on a bell curve where the center is 0.0."
The SR number you can see is Hero Skill Rating, which came back in Season 18. The August 2025 patch notes describe it as "a number between 0 and 5000, with 5000 being equivalent to the top of Champion 1", rated per hero, kept to your own Career Profile and "not used in Matchmaking in any way". Blizzard removed SR from ranks in the first place because players "perceived it as an absolute truth about skill, instead of the best-guess approximation it really is."
On that Hero SR scale, players on Blizzard's official forums report that Emerald starts at 2,500, and the band most rank guides repeat is 2,500 to 2,999, with Bronze shortened to make room below. That fits the 0 to 5000 scale, but Blizzard's patch notes don't list the bands, so treat the numbers as player-reported.
What has changed since Emerald was added?
Nothing about Emerald itself has changed in Blizzard's patch notes since August 11, 2026; the competitive changes since then have all landed at the top of the ladder. The Season 4 patch also raised the Challenger Score earned at Grandmaster 2 through Champion 1 (Champion 1 went from 700 to 900). Season 5: A Grim Doctrine, which launched on October 6, 2026, switched the Top 500 Challenger leaderboard to sort by Rank by default, made end-of-season titles reference Rank instead of Challenger Score and removed the Heat Bonus, according to the October 2026 patch notes.
What we don't know yet
- The share of players in Emerald. Blizzard hasn't released a distribution chart since the tier was added.
- The official SR band for Emerald, if Blizzard ever publishes one.
- Whether grouping limits changed for Platinum and Diamond players now that a tier sits between them. The Season 4 notes don't mention grouping.
- What the next competitive year brings. Blizzard's 2026 Spotlight says a new Season 1 follows Season 6 in 2027, and this year's Season 1 came with a full competitive reset; nothing about 2027's ranked changes has been announced.
