New Pick and Ban System in R6 Siege X

Every Rainbow Six Siege match used to start with the same four bans. Whatever your team hated most, gone. Then you played out the next 12 rounds with a fixed operator pool and prayed no one had a pocket strat for whatever was left. Siege X removed that on June 10, 2025, and replaced it with something that forces teams to think on their feet every single round.

Under Siege X, bans happen before every round instead of once at the start of the match. Each team gets one ban from the opposing side's operator pool per round. The attacking team bans a defender, the defending team bans an attacker, and both choices are made simultaneously to speed up the phase. Stack that across a full half, and you can remove up to three attackers and three defenders from the operator pool, with bans carrying from round to round until the sides switch.

When attackers become defenders at halftime, every ban gets wiped. The defender you banned in round one because he kept ruining your push is suddenly available to you on the other side of the match. This reset mid-game is something the old four-ban system never allowed.

Ubisoft's official Siege X reveal lays out the full roadmap around the Operation Daybreak update, but the round-by-round ban cadence influences your ranked queue the most.

The old system was efficient, but rigid. The four bans during the pre-match phase would be locked in for 12 rounds. If the enemy's Jackal was running you down by round six, too bad. You could not adapt. The new pick-and-ban system in Rainbow Six Siege allows each team to react as the match unfolds, which has been the single biggest shift in Siege's feel in years.

The simultaneous selection step is easy to dismiss on paper, but it completely changes the rhythm of the ban phase. You do not get to watch the enemy ban before you, so you cannot rely on the mind-games the old alternating-ban phase used to let you play.

The round-by-round bans show up in three places: Ranked, Unranked, and Custom Games. Ranked is the big one, but Unranked came back in the Operation Daybreak patch specifically so players could practice the new ban phase without tanking their reputation. Custom games also get the system, though with shorter round counts, the cadence feels noticeably different from a full ranked match. Quick Play and the new Dual Front 6v6 mode skip the whole thing.

If you want to learn how R6 ranked works after the Daybreak overhaul, the full rank structure is worth reading before you queue up.

Some operators will eat a ban every single round. That is life at higher ranks.

On attack, Ace leads at roughly a 72% ban rate, which is basically "if Ace exists in this game, remove him." After Ace, Dokkaebi, Thermite, Ram, and Blackbeard round out the top five, all pulling double-digit ban rates.

On defense, Mira sits at a 79% ban rate, which is unsurprising once you remember how much pros and Plat stacks despise one-way Black Mirrors on Clubhouse and Kafe. Kaid is right behind her at 42%, followed by Azami, Valkyrie, and Bandit.

At lower ranks, you will still see Blitz and Jackal draw bans regularly because they punish solo-queue habits that higher ranks have mostly drilled out of their game. Climb into Plat and above, and the ban priorities shift hard toward utility denial.

The competitive scene is where this change has the greatest impact. Pro teams used to build strats around a known, fixed operator pool. Coaches would draft their bans, lock their compositions, and execute. Siege X breaks that muscle memory. Now, coaches need to pre-plan branch scenarios, scout the enemy's tendencies, and prepare backup comps for the exact moment when their pocket pick gets banned in round four.

The rework gives players more agency during the actual match, pushing Siege closer to the Dota 2- or League of Legends-style draft adaptation. Some coaches love it. Others worry it slows high-stakes broadcasts to a crawl between rounds.

Either way, the old "set and forget" ban philosophy is dead. The teams that win the next Siege Cup and regional major will be the ones who can rewrite a full ban strategy on the fly.

Solo and semi-serious ranked players have to think differently now, too. A few things that actually help:

If you feel like the ban phase is punishing you more than it helps, that is usually a sign that your game plan was running on autopilot.

The fix is the same fix it has always been: fundamentals, information, and studying replays. Booking a session with a pro Siege coach on WeCoach is the quickest way to break bad habits in your ban logic, your setups, and your aim at the same time. Our coaches will tell you exactly which operators you should be banning and why, in situations you have probably never considered.