Apex Legends Season 31 Tier List: Best Legends After Cipher

Apex Legends Season 31 arrived on October 29 with the reveal of Cipher, and it is one of the more significant balance shake-ups the game has had in months. Crypto gets a full rework, Revenant and Lifeline both pick up meaningful buffs, a new Akimbo Wingman variant lands in the loot pool, and Ranked above Diamond now runs with Legend Bans. Every one of those changes moves the needle on who you should be picking right now, so we rebuilt our tier list from the ground up around the official Cipher patch notes.

This list is our opinion, built from the confirmed kit changes Respawn has published plus how those changes interact with the legends around them. Anything we could not verify in the patch notes is called out as such rather than presented as fact.

We update this list whenever a patch changes legend kits or the loot pool in a way that actually moves the meta, rather than on a fixed schedule. Cipher qualifies on both counts — a full rework and two legend buffs in the same drop is rare — so expect the tiers below to shift again once ranked data settles in.

01How Cipher Reshuffles the Season 31 Meta

The headline change is Crypto's full rework. His Surveillance Drone no longer runs on a cooldown — it is battery-powered, so you can pick it up and redeploy it as soon as you park it somewhere useful. Once it is in position it triggers a new Sentry Mode that tags every enemy in its sight line for your whole squad, and his EMP Ultimate can now be fired with a single button press instead of a channel. That turns Crypto from a passive intel specialist into an aggressive information engine, and it is the single biggest reason this list looks different from last patch.

Revenant and Lifeline both got quieter but still substantial buffs. Revenant's Ultimate cooldown is shorter and his Tactical is quicker, with new Upgrades that extend the Ultimate on every knock, silence nearby enemies after a Shadow Pounce, or refresh the Pounce automatically while an enemy is marked. Lifeline keeps her reduced D.O.C. cooldown and gliding self-heal from recent patches, and now adds Upgrades for an Ultimate cooldown cut, a revive shield, and better flight mobility.

Layer on top of that the new Strongholds — evolved Care Packages that trade a loud alarm for crate weapons, corrupted attachments, and squad EVO — and the dual-wield Akimbo Wingman, and you have a patch that rewards legends who can either control information or capitalize on chaotic, high-value fights.

02S-Tier: The Legends to Pick Right Now

Crypto is the clearest winner of the update. Removing his drone's cooldown fixes the single biggest complaint about his kit — that it was too slow to use proactively — and Sentry Mode gives a full squad repeatable vision without anyone exposing themselves. If you are comfortable playing a support-intel role, this is the best version of Crypto the game has had.

Wraith remains a top pick independent of this patch. Her kit's mix of a reliable escape, tight hitbox, and squad reposition tool still clears almost every fight she is dropped into, and nothing in Cipher touches her directly.

Revenant moves up into S-tier territory for us. A shorter Ultimate cooldown paired with Upgrades that extend it on knocks means a good Revenant player can realistically be in Shadow Form for most of a late-game fight, and the new Pounce-silence Upgrade punishes squads that try to push him off a knock.

03A-Tier: Still Excellent Picks

Lifeline slots just below the top tier. Her buffs are incremental rather than transformative, but a cheaper Ultimate and a revive shield make her the safest third-party insurance in the game, especially around the Strongholds fights this patch encourages.

Horizon, Bangalore, and Pathfinder all remain where they were — strong, flexible movement or utility picks that nothing in Cipher directly weakens. Horizon's lift still wins most third-party engagements, Bangalore's smoke rotation is still one of the best tools for disengaging from a Stronghold fight gone wrong, and Pathfinder's grapple keeps him relevant on almost every map rotation.

Gibraltar benefits indirectly from Strongholds — his Dome Shield is one of the best tools in the game for safely contesting a loud, alarmed loot location, which is exactly what Strongholds are built to be.

04B-Tier: Solid But Overshadowed

Octane, Ash, and Newcastle are all still playable and still win games, but each has a direct upgrade somewhere above them on this list for the role they fill. Octane's speed is great for rotating between Strongholds, but he lacks the staying power Gibraltar or Revenant bring to the actual fight once you get there. Ash is a fine aggressive flanker, but Wraith does the same job with a cleaner escape. Newcastle's revive shield now has real competition from Lifeline's buffed kit, and his kit asks more of you positionally for a similar payoff.

Loba and Mirage round out this tier. Loba's loot vacuum is genuinely strong around a freshly-opened Stronghold, but she brings little to the actual gunfight. Mirage's decoys are solid disengage tools but do not scale with the more chaotic, information-heavy fights Crypto's rework is pushing the meta toward.

Valkyrie and Seer also land here. Valkyrie's rotational Ultimate is still one of the best tools for skipping a bad fight entirely, but the current patch rewards contesting Strongholds rather than avoiding fights, which works against her strengths. Seer's intel kit now overlaps heavily with a reworked Crypto, and between the two, Crypto's squad-wide Sentry Mode is simply the stronger version of the same idea.

05C-Tier: Needs Backup to Shine

Caustic and Wattson both ask you to hold a static position, which is a harder sell when Strongholds actively punish camping with a sight- and sound-revealing alarm. They are not bad legends, but this patch's incentive to stay mobile works against their core identity.

Fuse and Mad Maggie remain the most situational picks on the roster. Both can be excellent in the right squad composition, but neither received anything in Cipher to push them higher, and both still ask a lot of coordination to pay off compared to the legends above them.

06Legend Bans and the New Diamond+ Draft

The other major Ranked change is the ban system itself. In Diamond and above, every player now casts one vote to ban a legend before the match, and the legend with the most votes sits out that round. It is unconfirmed exactly how many bans are applied per lobby or whether duos and trios vote separately, since EA's announcement did not spell out the mechanics in full, but the intent is clear: it stops a single dominant pick — likely Crypto or Revenant this patch — from being drafted into every lobby uncontested.

Practically, that means you want at least two legends from our S- or A-tier comfortable in your pool, not just one. If Crypto gets banned in your lobby, falling back to Wraith or Revenant should not cost you much.

How to Adapt Your Loadout for Cipher

1. 1Since the drone no longer has a cooldown, park it ahead of your rotation so it is already scanning before you commit to a fight.Pre-fight
2. 2In Diamond+ lobbies, keep at least two S- or A-tier legends in your pool so a ban on your first pick doesn't force you into a weaker spot.Diamond+ Ranked
3. 3Build toward the Upgrade that extends his Ultimate on knocks, then play Revenant to stay in Shadow Form through the whole fight.Mid-game
4. 4Pop D.O.C. early in a skirmish rather than saving it, since her reduced cooldown means it will likely be back before the next engagement.Late-game
5. 5Only commit to opening one if your squad can hold the alarm window — otherwise let another team trigger it and third-party the result.Loot phase

07Best Loadout Pairings for the Current Patch

Weapon-wise, the Akimbo Wingman is the headline addition — a dual-wielded version of the precision revolver that trades some accuracy for a serious burst damage spike at close range. It pairs well with any of the S-tier intel or mobility picks above, since you need to close distance fast to make the most of it. The new Mythic Volt SMG, Cryptic Core, drops in Cipher's seasonal packs and carries Crypto's color scheme along with cosmetic Exotic Shard retextures; it is not confirmed to have different base stats from the standard Volt, so treat any performance claims about it as unconfirmed until Respawn says otherwise.

If you are planning Stronghold raids specifically, prioritize whichever legend in your squad can best survive the alarm window — Gibraltar's Dome, Revenant's extended Shadow Form, or Wraith's escape all work for different playstyles. Remember that the alarm is audible and visible to every squad on the map, so treat a Stronghold push as a commitment to a fight, not a quiet loot run, and build your legend picks around whichever version of that fight you can win.

Apex Legends: Cipher Gameplay Trailer, published by the official Apex Legends channel on October 29, 2026.