Boost Your Gambit Infamy Rank: A Complete Guide

Destiny 2 offers three main activities for Guardians: Vanguard Ops, Crucible, and Gambit. Each of these ritual playlists has a rank-up system that gives you better rewards, with Gambit’s focusing on Infamy ranks. By increasing your Infamy rank, you unlock additional rewards.

To achieve the Dredgen title and access certain ornaments, you must reset your Infamy rank. Understanding the Infamy ranks is essential for anyone looking to progress in Gambit. This guide will explain everything about Infamy ranks, including the points needed and how to efficiently grind for Infamy.

Updated October 20, 2024, by Charles Burgar: The latest season of Gambit has reintroduced the beloved Bygones Pulse Rifle. We’ve refreshed this guide with new Gambit Focusing options from the Drifter and made a few sections clearer.

Gambit Infamy Ranks

Before you start earning Infamy ranks, it’s important to know the requirements for each rank. Like the Valor Crucible playlists, you gain Infamy with every Gambit match, win or lose. However, winning and maintaining an Activity Streak can give you significant bonuses in progress.

While leveling your Infamy is generally slower than leveling Valor or Vanguard ranks, it shouldn’t be as tedious as in previous years. Gambit offers unique rewards for players who successfully reset their Infamy multiple times—rewards that are typically not available through the regular ritual playlist rank resets (details later in the guide).

Here’s a breakdown of all Infamy ranks in Gambit:

How to Earn Infamy

Gaining Gambit Infamy is straightforward: just play Gambit. Each match provides you with Infamy, regardless of whether you win or lose. Technically, you could accumulate 10,000 Infamy from losing alone, but this approach is much slower than focusing on wins and maintaining an Activity Streak. By using a few strategies, you can accelerate your Infamy progress significantly.

Win Matches

While this might seem simple, winning Gambit matches grants much more Infamy than losing. As you climb the Infamy ranks, your Infamy gains from wins become increasingly significant. For instance, losing matches when you’re at the Guardian rank still allows you to make decent progress toward your next rank, while losses at the Mythic rank yield much smaller Infamy rewards, making winning essential.

Earn Infamy Activity Streaks

Your Infamy earnings can increase significantly by playing consecutively without taking breaks. Completing any Gambit match, win or lose, will activate an Activity Streak, which boosts the Infamy you gain from future games. Your streak maxes out at five consecutive games.

Maintaining this Gambit Activity Streak across multiple matches will allow you to earn much more Infamy with every game played, particularly with wins contributing the most. To enhance your chances of winning, consider forming a fireteam with three other Guardians before diving into the Gambit playlist.

Keep in mind that Activity Streaks are quite easy to break. Any of the following actions will reduce or reset your current Activity Streak:

• Visiting a destination (except for the Tower, H.E.L.M, and returning to orbit).
• Leaving an active Gambit match.
• Engaging in any other activity, which completely resets your current Activity Streak.

Just to clarify, exiting Destiny 2 does not reset your streak.

Play Gambit During Double Infamy Weeks

Various weeks throughout the Destiny 2 season will offer increased Infamy gains from all sources, including Activity Streaks. During these double Infamy weeks, your Infamy earnings are doubled until the next reset, making it an ideal time to boost your Infamy rank. Keep in mind that these weeks aren’t specified on the content roadmap, so be aware of the “Next Week in Destiny” announcement whenever you log in.

If a double Infamy week is active, you will receive a notification upon entering orbit stating that Infamy gains have increased. Additionally, a modifier will show when selecting the Gambit playlist, displayed right above the activity name.

Infamy Rewards

Gambit provides an informative reward structure. Players who enjoy Gambit can now earn Masterwork materials and even Exotics simply by leveling their Infamy.

Infamy Rank-Up Rewards

Advancing through Gambit’s Infamy ranks grants the following rewards:

If you regularly engage in Crucible or Vanguard Strikes, you might notice the reward structures are quite similar. This is intentional, as most of the rewards are the same. The only variation lies in the unique cosmetics and gear tied to Gambit, where you’ll earn Gambit Engrams instead of Legendary Engrams.

Additionally, once a season concludes, the rewards you receive from the Drifter will reset, allowing you to obtain an Ascendant Shard and Gambit-themed cosmetic gear every season.

Gambit Engram Focusing

Weapons and armor from Gambit support the Engram Focusing system. As you progress, you’ll earn Gambit Engrams that can be focused into specific weapons and armor. Each focused Engram guarantees the item you focus on, though the roll remains random. Focusing an Engram costs 5,000 Glimmer and requires 3-5 Gambit Engrams, depending on the item you want to create.

You can focus Gambit Engrams into any weapon or piece of armor linked to this activity. There is no limit to how many times you can focus Gambit Engrams in a single season. Participate in Gambit matches, collect Gambit Engrams from the Drifter, and focus those Engrams on the specific weapons you desire.

Gambit Playlist Rewards

In addition to a unique armor set (shown above), you can earn various weapons from Gambit after each match. Additionally, focusing Gambit Engrams lets you specifically target the weapons you want. Here’s a list of all obtainable Gambit weapons:

Tips for Earning More Infamy

Every method of acquiring Infamy discussed above can help enhance your Gambit rank. To optimize your efforts, a few strategies and tips can simplify the Infamy earning process.

General Gambit Tips

• Get Damage Resistance: Achieving T10 Resilience offers a 30% damage reduction against all PvE engagements, although it does not protect you from other players. This, combined with DR mods on your chest piece, ensures you take much less damage while playing Gambit.
• Always Invade: The team that executes a solid invasion first tends to gain a significant advantage. Be sure to invade as soon as possible and make it a point to invade whenever a portal is available. If your teammates neglect to invade, your chances of losing increase dramatically.
• Collect Heavy Ammo: Clearing a wave of enemies always spawns Heavy ammo on that side. Make sure to grab this before summoning the Primeval or using the invasion portal.

Get a Team Together

This is easier said than done, but coordinating with a full fireteam is highly beneficial. Working together makes invading, collecting Motes, and dealing damage to the Primeval much easier. If you’re unfamiliar with players who enjoy Gambit, reach out to skilled players you meet in matches or utilize LFG services like the Destiny 2 PC LFG Discord.

Invade if You’re Solo

Invaders can significantly impact Gambit matches. This role demands minimal coordination with your team and relies solely on your individual skills. A successful invader can slow down the enemy team’s progress. If you’re playing solo, being a competent Invader is vital for consistent success.

Luckily, excellent PvP skills aren’t mandatory for being a successful Invader. The mere existence of an Invader can cause players to freeze and hide, halting their Mote collection. With wallhacks, it’s easier to score headshots and you will find Sniper Rifles, Machine Guns, and Leviathan’s Breath particularly effective.

When the enemy team is in the Primeval phase, securing one or two kills can afford your team the time they need to recover. Make ample use of your Super and Heavy weapons to ensure these kills. Equipment like Truth, Jotunn, Leviathan’s Breath, Xenophage, and virtually any Machine Gun will excel in securing Guardian eliminations. The penalty for dying as an Invader is minimal, so keep utilizing the invasion portal. The more experience you gain, the better you will become.

Speed Clearing Tips

Clearing enemy waves efficiently in Gambit is crucial to winning. Eliminating enemies promptly allows for quicker Mote deposits and Primeval summoning.

Here are some tactics to speed up the PvE component of Gambit:

• Add-Clear Builds: A well-optimized build can swiftly handle entire waves of Gambit enemies. For instance, Void builds can utilize Volatile Rounds, Arc builds can trigger Jolt, and Solar can ignite enemies. Refer to our build guides for advice on maximizing these capabilities.
• PvE Exotics: Trinity Ghoul, Huckleberry, and Riskrunner are among the most effective Exotics for clearing adds. Ensure these weapons are Masterworked before deploying them.
• Utilize Portals: Many Gambit maps feature portals for swift traversal. Leverage these to cut down your movement time significantly.