For Ranked Play in Modern Warfare 2, players are forced to use competitive settings. As far as loadouts are concerned, this significantly limits the number of weapons and pieces of equipment we can choose to use. Here are the best weapon builds for competitive play, as well as our suggested loadouts for the competitive game modes: Hardpoint, Search, and Control.
In the Ranked playlist,players use the exact same competitive settings that pros use in the CDL. In competitive Call of Duty basically all weapons besides ARs and SMGs are banned, as are most of the grenades and perks. The idea is to get rid of anything that could be broken and offer free kills, which is a ton of stuff in CoD.
You can find the best competitive-compliant attachment setups for the current meta weapons below. We've also provided our suggestion for grenades and perks for each of the competitive modes: Hardpoint, Search and Destroy, and Control.
How To Create Custom Loadouts For Ranked Play
When you load into a game of Ranked Play none of your normal classes will be available, instead you will see your competitive custom loadout slots. These are completely separate from your ordinary custom classes.
Just go to the "Weapons" tab and create your Ranked Loadouts here, restricted weapons and equipment will not even be displayed, so your loadouts should always be rule compliant.
We advise making the following classes out of your ten slots, as a baseline:
- Hardpoint AR
- Hardpoint SMG
- SnD AR
- SnD SMG
- Control AR
- Control SMG
Although, if you're strictly an SMG or an AR player, and you know you won't pick the other option, then you obviously don't need to make classes for the other weapon. We'll go into the perks and equipment choices for each of these classes further down, but the actual attachment setup for the AR and the SMG won't change between modes.
The Best Ranked / Competitive AR Setup: TAQ-56
| Slot | Attachment |
| Muzzle | Sakin Tread-40 |
Ammunition | High Velocity |
| Stock | TV Cardinal Stock |
| Rear Grip | FSS Combat Grip |
| Underbarrel | Edge-47 Grip |
You don't need the Tundra barrel we promise you! It's absolutely not worth it for the ranges of most engagements in multiplayer. The reason that pros use it is that they have an unofficial GA (Gentlemen's Agreement) to all use the Tundra barrel and prevent ARs from becoming too fast by comparison to SMGs.
The Best Ranked / Competitive SMG Setup: Vaznev-9K
| Slot | Attachment |
| Muzzle | Bruen Pendulum |
| Stock | Otrezat Stock |
| Rear Grip | True-Tac Grip |
| Underbarrel | FSS Sharkfin-90 |
A lot of folks don't like the default Kastov iron sights. If that's you, then don't worry too much about putting a 1x like the Slimline pro on the weapon, the slower handling speeds are negligible. The build above is what every pro has been using pretty much since it launch - it fries.
The Best Ranked / Competitive Sidearm Setup: X12
| Slot | Attachment |
| Muzzle | XRK Ventor |
| Barrel | XRk Sidewinder |
Rear Grip | Cronen Lima-6 |
| Trigger Action | XRK Lighting Fire |
The four attachments mentioned above are sufficient for the pistol, which is only used in few situations anyway. A larger magazine is not really necessary.
Perks & Grenades For Each Mode (Attack & Defense)
Now that you have your AR, SMG and sidearm built, you can get every class ready for each mode. We suggest having separate classes for attack and defense in both Control and Search. Here's our loadout suggestions for each mode:
| Mode | Secondary | Lethal | Tactical | Base Perks | Bonus Perks | Field Upgrade |
| Hardpoint AR | Knife (consider the pistol for Hydro, it can be used underwater) | Semtex | Stuns | Battle Hardened, Bomb Squad | Focus | Trophy System |
| Hardpoint SMG | Knife (consider the pistol for Hydro, it can be used underwater) | Semtex | Stuns | Battle Hardened, Bomb Squad | Focus | Dead Silence |
| Search and Destroy AR | Pistol | Frag Grenade | Stuns | Double Time, Bomb Squad | Focus | Dead Silence |
| Search and Destroy SMG | Knife (consider the pistol for Hydro, it can be used underwater) | Frag Grenade | Stuns | Double Time, Bomb Squad | Focus | Dead Silence |
| Control AR | Knife | Semtex | Stuns | Battle Hardened, Bomb Squad | Focus | Trophy System |
| Control SMG | Knife | Semtex | Stuns | Battle Hardened, Bomb Squad | Focus | Dead Silence |
You'll notice there are no Ultimate perks, but these are banned in competitive. Also for grenades we only have the choice between Frag Grenades and Semtex and in the tactical slot only Stun Grenades are allowed.
And there you have it, our current recommendation for Ranked Play loadouts. If you've been waiting for competitive play to pick up the new CoD, you can buy MW2 here .
Have you heard of CoD 2023 yet?