The most surprising thing aboutApex Legends Season 20has been the number of Seers appearing on the ranked ladder. After his dominant start in thebattle royalewith overpowered scanning abilities, subsequent nerfs left him languishing as one of the least-used characters in the game. So why is everyone picking him back up all of a sudden?
It’s not because his Legend perks are impeccable; they’re average at best. While some Legends like Bangalore have received nice buffs despite already being in a strong place, and a couple have been given perks that couldresurrect them from the bottom of the barrel(Mirage is in a decent spot now and Lifeline has been given a, well, lifeline), Seer’s perks don’t change much.
However, Seer is currently the subject of a Breakout Challenge. There will be six such challenges over the course of Season 20, and completing them will unlock the Legend they focus on for free. For Seer, you have to play ten matches with him, deal 2,500 damage with him, perform three finishers as him, and more.
So plenty of new players are trying out Seer so they can unlock him permanently. But surely the majority of players have already unlocked him? While you can pay real money for new Legends, anyone who’s been playing Apex for a few seasons will have an abundance of Legend tokens at their disposal, a currency that can only be spent on new characters or skin recolours. I have thousands of the tokens lying around, gathering dust, despite unlocking a new character with them every season. It’s worth remembering how broken Seer was when he was released, so most people went out and bought him to join in the scanning fun.
If most committed players have already unlocked Seer, then why are there so many in ranked, even at the higher levels? In addition to the Legend unlock challenges, there are Season-long variants of the Breakout Challenges. One of these is to unlock every Legend through their fortnight-long challenges. And the reward for this season-long challenge is excellent.
SomeApex Legendsskins are known as ‘pay-to-win’. The long and short of it is that the community believes that buying certain skins makes you better at the game. This is usually due to how much a skin obstructs your view. The Heatsink Flatline, for example, is an incredibly narrow weapon skin that allows you to see a lot of movement when aiming down sights, but it was only available by completing the Season 4 battle pass. If you didn’t reach level 100 back in 2020, tough luck.
The reward for completing Season 20’s Breakout Challenges is a Heatsink recolour. Firstly, the purple looks slick. Secondly, this is the first time this weapon skin has been available since it was released nearly four years ago. Now you see why people are playing Seer.
Let’s look to the future. It’s annoying to have your abilities locked by Seer in every ranked match, but some of the upcoming Legends will be far more oppressive. Fuse will create chaos when it’s his turn, and Storm Point will become an arena of insufferable explosions. This is coming from a Fuse main, by the way. But Rampart will be even worse.
There’s no ability I dislike more in Apex than Sheila. Rampart’s massive minigun deals horrendous amounts of damage in seconds, and I’ve been killed by zero-audio Ramparts sneaking up with a minigun more times than I can count. I’m extremely glad she didn’t get buffed too much in Season 20, but the two-week period when her challenges are active will be worse than any buff she could get. Worst of all, however, is that I’ll have to play her.
I managed to complete Seer’s challenges in one session on the first day of Season 20, but I’m still seeing him a couple of days later as more casual players jump into the new-look battle royale. But I know the fervour for Rampart will be extreme, and I’ll have to fight off my own teammates to even select her for a match. Then I’ll undoubtedly have to wield Sheila myself, thirsting downed enemies with unsportsmanlike finishers, and becoming the very player that I hate.
I want that Flatline skin, and sadly, I’m willing to compromise my morals in order to get it. I’m disappointed in myself, too. I guess you either die a Legend or live long enough to see yourself become the Rampart.
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