How do Overwatch Competitive ranks work?

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Overwatch Competitive is the ranked play aspect of the game and is sorted by a Skill Rating (SR) system. The divides between different levels of SR are created through brackets, which are as follows:

• Bronze - this bracket is for all players that are below 1500 SR (0 - 1499).
• Silver - this bracket is for all players that are above 1500 SR, but below 2000 SR (1500 - 1999).
• Gold - this bracket is for all players that are above 2000 SR, but below 2500 SR (2000 - 2499).
• Platinum - this bracket is for all players that are above 2500 SR, but below 3000 SR (2500 - 2999).
• Diamond - this bracket is for all players that are above 3000 SR, but below 3500 SR (3000 - 3499).
• Master - this bracket is for all players that are above 3500 SR, but below 4000 SR (3500 - 3999).
• Grand Master - this bracket is for all players that are above 4000 SR (4000+).
• Top 500 - this bracket is for the 500 highest ranking players in competitive currently in pure SR, regardless of their rank bracket.

For most players, once you have completed your placements, you can play as much or as little as you want, but once you reach at least Diamond, you will run into something called decay.

Decay, in Overwatch, occurs when you do not fulfill a certain quota of games that must be played per week; once it kicks in, you will lose SR at a constant rate until you have filled that quota until you reach 3000 SR. To stop decay, you will need to play 5 games per week of competitive. If you do not, you will lose 25 SR each day you do not play. If you come back and play a game of competitive, you will give yourself a 36-hour window in which decay will halt before starting once more.

While decay does not exist for lower rank brackets, you can now drop out of ranks below Diamond if you do not stay within the designated SR area. If you are playing below Diamond level and fall out of the SR area for your current bracket, you have 5 games to get back into the designated SR area. If you do not, you will be demoted. For example, if you start a playing session at 2510 SR in Platinum and then lose 3 games, you could end up at approximately 2450 SR. You then have 2 games to put yourself back above 2500 SR or you will be moved to Gold.