Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege launched in December 2015, gaining immense popularity over the years with its intricate and complex gameplay. This tactical FPS shooter is halfway into Year 7 in 2022, and a lot has changed in terms of operator pick rate since its release.
Right now, we are at the start of Rainbow Six Siege‘s Year 7 Season 3, and the current season Operation Brutal Swarm High, will be coming to an end sometime around December 2022. Siege’s development team has shared the official data in their Designer Notes, which includes all the latest operator pick/ban rate data of the previous Y7S2.2 patch. And this should provide you with a greater insight into the most played and banned Siege operators in 2022, which might also help you pick or ban operators in your own matches.
Credit: All the graphs below have been collected from Ubisoft and contain data recorded from PC-Ranked Platinum and above.
NOTE: Presence – pick rate of an Operator when not banned; Win Delta- The Win Delta is aggregated from Operator’s Win Deltas per Bomb Site.
Rainbow Six Siege Pick Rates
Attackers
| High Pick Rate (Presence > 40%) | Average Pick Rate (15% < Presence < 40%) |
| Finka | Jackal |
| Iana | Ace |
| Sledge | Thermite |
| Thatcher | Zofia |
| Twitch | Maverick |
| Hibana | |
| Ash | |
| Nomad |
| Low Pick Rate (Presence < 15%) |
| Buck, Osa, Nokk |
| Flores, Amaru. IQ |
| Zero, Montagne, Dokkaebi, Blackbeard, , Lion, Blitz |
| Kali, Capitao, Fuze, Ying |
| Gridlock, Glaz, Sens |
High Pick Rate
Finka, Sledge, Iana, Twitch, and Thatcher sit on top of the presence chart with an over 40% pick rate. This is because of their strong utility and primary weapons that have high damage and are relatively easier to control. Finka is crossing over the chart, boasting a pick rate of over 80%. Over the past few seasons, Finka has kept getting stronger, as she received Frag grenades, the Gonne-6, her reworked ability to give permanent health boosts and self-revive herself from a DBNO state. Additionally, the LMG meta has helped her to remain at the top. However, with the Y7S3 patch, Ubisoft has introduced a big recoil pattern change, which has significantly nerfed LMGs; plus, with the removal of Frage grenades, we can expect her presence to fall significantly.
In the new patch, Iana also lost her Gonne-6 and 1.5x on the ARX200; Sledge lost the classic ACOG after 7 years, and secondary impact EMP grenades have been introduced as an alternative to Thatcher. All these changes are expected to bring down their pick rate more in line with the other attackers.
Average Pick Rate
Ash, whose presence once crossed the charts, had her pick rate reduced but still relatively high, with the multiple nerfs she received in the past. These nerf include the removal of the ACOG on her R4-C, a significant R4-C recoil nerf, reduced number of breaching rounds, and loss of stun grenades. The meta in Rainbow Six Siege has also shifted from the heavy-utility meta to a more balanced one, so an Ash-pick is not mandatory now. Zofia has also received similar treatment to Ash from Ubisoft. This Polish attacker boasted an almost 80% pick rate during Year 6, and the major recoil nerf on her M762 AR helped her bring more in line with the other attackers. With the new Y7S3 patch, both the R4-C and M762 AR has become a little easier to use, which could lead to a higher presence of both these operators.
The three other hard-breachers of Hibana, Maverick, and Thermite are less appealing, as most maps and objectives can be played with one hard-breacher. Ace’s fragging power, combined with his SELMA gadget, makes him more popular than the other choices. However, Hibana and Thermite are still very effective in their job of breaching and have quite good load-outs as well.
Jackal saw a slight increase in terms of presence compared to the previous patch. This is most likely due to players picking this operator whenever they remain unbanned, which is a rare case in many maps. As a flank-watcher, Nomad is still the best operator, which shows in the presence chart, with her pick rate being much higher than others like Gridlock or Zero.
Low Pick Rate
Several attackers are stacked together towards the bottom of the presence chart. Their pick rate is much lower than others as their gadgets are highly situational or not very effective in this current meta. The really high and low win rates of Montagne and Blackbeard should not be taken as accurate representation because their pick rate is very low. The newest Attacker Sens is not the most popular choice amongst Siege players, mostly due to his weapon not being as strong as everyone would have hoped. Sens’ gadget can be very useful, but it requires a team effort to be used effectively, and most Ranked teams won’t feel the necessity to bring him over other operators.
Defenders
| High Pick Rate (Presence > 30%) | Average Pick Rate (18% < Presence < 30%) |
| Alibi | Valkyrie, Thunderbird |
| Jager | Smoke |
| Melusi | Bandit |
| Mute | Kaid, Wamai |
| Mozzie, Azami | |
| Lesion, Kapkan | |
| Aruni, Oryx |
| Low Pick Rate (Presence < 10%) |
| Vigil, Doc, Ela, Mira |
| Goyo, Frost, Thorn |
| Maestro, Pulse, Rook, Castle |
| Clash, Warden, Caveira, Echo |
| Tachanka |
High Pick Rate
It is a rare sight to see, but Jager has finally lost his number one slot in the pick rate chart. This position is now held by the unforeseen Italian operator – Alibi. Alibi’s high presence is mainly because of her primary SMG, the Mx4 Storm, which has a high fire rate of 950. Paired with the 1.5x scope, Alibi becomes a force to be reckoned with, especially on a mechanically-abled player. Jager has seen less play due to the multiple nerfs to his speed, gadget, and weapon, toning down his power. Melusi, the defender who slows down the pace of Attackers, is in 3rd place, while the intel-denial operator Mute is in 4th place as he is hugely popular and helpful on almost all maps.
Average Pick Rate
Thunderbird remains in a good position in terms of pick-rate, as she is a 3-speed operator with a good gun and gadget. The intel-providing operator Valkyrie remains one of the most popular because of her Black Eye cameras. Even after her nerf of her cams getting disabled outside, Valkyrie still enables the defending team valuable visual intel that can win an entire round.
The pick rate of the SAS defenders – Smoke – has remained consistently in the middle over the years. Smoke has a versatile loadout and a crucial gadget, making him an easy pick on multiple Siege maps. Wall-electrifying operators such as Kaid and Bandit are also picked very often because of their important utility. With Thatcher banned, this often forces Attackers to bring Maverick or a Kali in their lineup.
The other projectile catcher of Wamai sits very behind Jager in terms of presence. This is most likely because of the place-it and forget-it type of gadget Jager possesses, while Wamai’s Mag-NET disc refills over a period of time, requiring him to play more passively to get use of all his discs. The removal of the 1.5x on Wamai’s MP5-K might reduce his pick rate further.
Low Pick Rate
In Y7S3 of Rainbow Six Siege, the operator pool is so deep that many strong operators are not experiencing a good pick rate. Plant-denial and intel-providing operators of Echo and Maestro used to have a very high presence; however multiple nerfs to their gadgets and guns, including the removal of ACOG, have slashed their pick rate down to less than 5%. However, the positive win rate shows their match-winning capabilities.
Ban rate
Rainbow Six Siege ranked players mostly ban operators who have strong or unique gadgets like Mira and Thatcher. You can find all the ban statistics of this current Y7S3 patch down below:
Most Banned Attacker
The Thatcher ban has become quite a staple for ranked matches, making hard-breaching more time-consuming for attackers. On the other hand, Jackal is banned to reduce the frustration of getting tracked while roaming.
| Most Banned Attacker | Ban Rate (%) |
| Thatcher | 85 |
| Jackal | 56 |
| No Ban | 19 |
| Finka | 17 |
| Montagne | 9 |
| Osa | 2 |
| Nomad | 2 |
| Maverick | 3 |
| Flores/Nokk/Hibana/Ace/Blackbeard | 1 |
Most Banned Defender
On the defending side, Mira and Valkyrie are two of the most banned defenders because of their valuable main gadgets. Valkyrie is supposed to receive a nerf in the next season, where her cams thrown outside the building will now get disabled after 10 seconds.
| Most Banned Defender | Ban Rate (%) |
| Mira | 59 |
| Valkyrie | 45 |
| Kaid | 35 |
| No Ban | 20 |
| Clash | 13 |
| Kapkan | 11 |
| Melusi | 6 |
| Caveira | 2 |
| Alibi | 2 |
| Azami/Jager/Mute | 1 |
Do keep in mind that these stats for pick and bans are only for PC Ranked – Platinum and above and don’t represent the full picture. You should pick and ban operators based on your team’s strategy. And if you want to know which are the best operators in the game right now, find our full operator rankings here.
We will keep updating this article throughout Year 7.
