Update on the Overwatch website with a preview of how competitive play will work in the upcoming teamplay shooter, saying that an in-development version of this system is now in place in the closed beta test. An important part of how any such system works is matchmaking, so here's a bit on how they will handle rank and progression:

Providing players with a sense of progression is an important part of any competitive system—in Overwatch's Competitive Play mode, advancement comes through a system of divisions and tiers.

Competitive Play features four distinct tiers: Challenger, Advanced, Expert, and Master. Each tier also has five divisions, ranked 1 through 5. Challenger 1 is the lowest tier and division (all players will begin here) and Master 5 is the highest tier and division. To progress, you'll need to earn a specific amount of points. You’ll gain points for winning competitive matches and, depending on the which tier you're in, lose points for being defeated. The number of points awarded or deducted varies depending on the tier and the specific win/loss condition.

With this, while you can always be promoted to a new division or tier by earning enough points, you can never be demoted out of a tier once you've reached it—regardless of how many points you may lose, you can only ever move to a lower division.

Additional details:

• Players will start at Challenger 1 with 0 points
• Players will earn 20 points for a victory
• Players will lose 20 points for a defeat
• Progressing from one division to next requires 100 points
• Progressing from one tier to the next requires 100 points while at that tier's final division
• While in the Challenger tier, players will not lose points for a defeat
• While in Challenger, Advanced, or Expert tiers, players will earn 40 points (instead of 20 points) for consecutive victories
• While in Advanced or Expert tiers, players will lose 10 points (instead of 20 points) for a defeat if the match is lost during a tie-breaking round
• Players may only queue as a group if they are within 10 divisions of one another

Players at Master 5 will also have the opportunity to advance to a special fifth tier: Heroic! This tier has no divisions—instead, every player who reaches Heroic will receive a unique numeric rank* relative to other players in the tier. In the future, we also want to provide in-game leaderboards to showcase the top-ranked players in Heroic each season. Learn more about our plans for seasons below.

*Please note that this functionality won't be available during our pre-season testing phase.