Apex Legends Cipher: How Legend Bans, Strongholds and HUD Work

Apex Legends: Cipher (Season 31) went live on November 3, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, and it changes more than just the loot pool. Three systems in this update — ranked Legend Bans, Strongholds, and a reworked Crypto kit with new HUD elements — aren't explained anywhere in the in-game tutorial, and the official patch notes bury the mechanics under a wall of bullet points. This breaks down exactly how each one works, sourced straight from Respawn's own Cipher patch notes, so you know what you're reacting to before your next match instead of guessing mid-round.

01What Changed in Apex Legends: Cipher

Cipher is built around three new systems layered on top of the existing battle royale loop: Legend Bans in high-rank Ranked, Strongholds as a new high-tier loot structure, and a dual-wielded Akimbo Wingman. Crypto also received a full kit rework, and Lifeline and Revenant picked up buffs of their own. None of this is cosmetic — every one of these changes affects how a match actually plays out, and the patch notes assume you already know the old systems well enough to spot what's different.

The Legend-side buffs are smaller but still worth knowing before you load in. Revenant gets a shorter Ultimate cooldown, a quicker Tactical ability, and new Upgrades available through his kit's upgrade tree. Lifeline's changes lean toward survivability: her D.O.C. healing drone has a reduced cooldown, she can now self-heal while gliding, and she gains a shield while reviving a downed teammate, which used to be one of the more exposed moments in her kit. None of these three systems — Legend Bans, Strongholds, or the Akimbo Wingman — care which Legend you're playing, but they all change the decisions you make before and during a fight, which is why this breakdown treats them as the headline of the update.

Official Apex Legends: Cipher gameplay trailer from the Apex Legends YouTube channel, released ahead of the Nov 3 launch.

02How Legend Bans Work in Ranked

Legend Bans only apply once you're queuing in Diamond or higher in Ranked. The patch notes describe a weighted-ban system, not a simple vote: at the start of the match-starting flow, each player gets to request one Legend they'd like to see banned. When the request timer closes, the game tallies every request and gives each requested Legend a chance of being banned equal to its share of the total requests — if a Legend accounts for 80% of all ban requests in that lobby, it has an 80% chance of being picked in the first randomized selection. Two Legends are banned per match this way.

There's a backstop for quiet lobbies, too: if fewer than four unique Legends get requested, the system automatically adds a request to each of the previous week's most-played Legends until at least four candidates are in the pool. Once the two bans are locked in, those Legends simply can't be picked for that match, and everyone moves on to normal Legend select.

Because the system is weighted rather than a flat vote, a Legend that's wildly over-requested in a given lobby is more likely to get banned than one that only a couple of players flagged, but it isn't a guarantee — the patch notes are explicit that the first selection is randomized against those weighted odds, not a straight ranking by request count. Below Diamond, none of this applies; Legend select works exactly as it did before Cipher.

How Legend Bans Play Out in Ranked

1. 1Legend Bans only trigger once your Ranked rank is Diamond or higher — below that, Legend select still works exactly like last season.Pre-match
2. 2When the match-starting flow opens, pick the single Legend you'd most like to see banned from that lobby.~10 sec
3. 3Every player's request is tallied once the timer ends; you can't change your pick after submitting.~15 sec
4. 4Each requested Legend's ban odds equal its share of total requests, and the game randomly selects two Legends to ban using those weighted odds.Instant
5. 5If fewer than four unique Legends were requested, the system adds requests for last week's most-played Legends until at least four are in the pool.Instant
6. 6Move into normal Legend select — the two banned Legends simply aren't selectable for that match.~30 sec

03Strongholds: Apex's New High-Tier Loot Structures

Strongholds are locked, bunker-style structures that drop in alongside Care Packages rather than replacing them outright. Per the patch notes, the map gets two Care Package drops when Round 1 closes, then one more Care Package plus one Stronghold when Round 2 closes. When a Stronghold lands, anything standing underneath it is crushed and killed, and if there's room, it deploys up to four indestructible barriers and two Hardlight frames around itself for cover.

A Stronghold stays locked until a team controls the zone around it — nobody can force their way in early, and the patch notes specifically call out that Loba can't steal from it and Alter can't breach it while it's sealed. Capture progress only moves while exactly one team is alive inside the zone, multiple squads can contest it over time, progress doesn't decay between attempts, and it fills faster with more teammates present. Whichever team is standing in the zone when progress hits 100% gets the capture. The payoff is immediate: the doors and roof hatch pop open, every living member of the capturing team gets an instant level up, and the structure drops one Care Package-tier weapon, three Gold weapon attachments, three Amps and two Corrupted Attachments.

04The Akimbo Wingman: Stats, Ammo and How to Get One

The Akimbo Wingman isn't a separate item you pick up directly — find a second Wingman while you're already holding one, in ground loot or at a Heavy Arsenal, and looting it automatically slots you into Akimbo mode. That second-weapon switch also changes what you're feeding it: the Akimbo Wingman now runs on Heavy Ammo and takes Heavy Magazines instead of the Sniper Ammo the solo Wingman uses, so it draws from Heavy Ammo Arsenals on the map.

The stats shift with the switch, too. Base damage per shot drops from 50 to 45, but Akimbo mode applies a 1.25x headshot multiplier for 56 damage on a landed headshot, fire rate ticks up slightly, and the magazine size effectively doubles since you're running two guns. Reload time and recoil both increase to compensate. The two Wingmans fire in alternating quick bursts rather than a single simultaneous shot, and holding the trigger down keeps releasing the next burst automatically once the current one finishes. That burst behavior isn't unique to the Akimbo Wingman this season, either — the patch notes confirm the Prowler, Hemlok Burst, Nemesis Burst and the new Akimbo Wingman all support tap-fire queuing now, so a tap registered during the reset window fires the instant the current burst ends instead of getting dropped.

05Crypto's Reworked Kit and Controls

Crypto's entire kit changed in Cipher, and so did his button layout. His Surveillance Drone no longer runs on a cooldown — it's powered by batteries now — and it gained a Sentry Mode that automatically tags enemies it spots. His EMP Ultimate can now be deployed with a single button press instead of the old multi-step sequence. On controls, the patch notes list the Ultimate as now bound to Y on console and its PC equivalent, while the Shoot button doubles as the mark command, including the ability to manually fire a mark while you're piloting the drone. If you've played Crypto before this patch, expect muscle memory to betray you for the first few games. His drone no longer idling on a cooldown timer also changes positioning: since it only runs out when the battery depletes, you can hold scouting duty open far longer before you're forced to recall it and wait.

Once you've got the rules above down, it's worth reading a separate breakdown of how to actually play around them for lobby-level calls like when to commit to a fight over loot.

06New HUD and Ranked Menu Changes

Several HUD elements changed to support the new systems. Wild Cards are now granted through a selection UI that appears at the top of the HUD at the start of Rounds 1, 2 and 3, instead of being handed out silently. The Ranked "Waiting for Players" screen was reworked, and a dedicated Ranked tab was added to the inventory menu so you can review your match history without digging through old menus.

The kill feed itself now shows RP earned per kill directly in the feed, and the Net RP display changes color depending on whether your session is in the red or the black — red text for a net loss, white for a net gain. None of these are optional toggles; they're on by default as part of the Cipher update, so don't be surprised if your HUD looks busier than it did last season. If you've been playing Ranked specifically to climb, the new Ranked tab is worth checking after every session — it's the only place that now shows a clean history of how much RP you actually gained or lost match to match, instead of making you reconstruct it from memory or the end-of-match screen alone.

07FAQ

08Official Resources