IRON BANNER

Test your strength in the Iron Banner, a limited-time PvP week-long event that may occur throughout a content release.
To get started, visit Lord Saladin in the Tower Courtyard when this event is active!

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IRON BANNER

Test your strength in the Iron Banner, a limited-time PvP week-long event that may occur throughout a content release. To get started, visit Lord Saladin in the Tower Courtyard when this event is active!

Days

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

This event is not active.

Enter the Iron Banner

Twice a season, Lord Saladin – one of the last living Iron Lords now known as Valus Forge – visits the Tower to test Guardians in the old ways.
Choose your weapons, enter the Iron Banner to prove yourself, and earn new rewards that are exclusive to the Iron Banner activity, including armour, weapons and shaders!
Valus Forge and the Empress have recently reworked Iron Banner, shaping it into something new. Learn more about all of the changes in this guide!

September 16, 2025

Quick Menu − What are you looking for?

Did Iron Banner change?

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What's New this Season?

Iron Banner Loot

Video Guides

Iron Banner: Competitive PvP Event

The Iron Banner Reforged

Here is a quick overview of the Iron Banner event:

For new Guardians, there is a one-time intro quest to complete.
Power Level is disabled for Iron Banner.
How to Play:
- Earn score by completing objectives in Iron Banner matches.
- There are two modes available:
  - Iron Banner Control: Standard control mode with slight modifications. Uses loose SBMM. (focuses on similar skill, but also looks for favourable connection)
  - Iron Banner Quickplay: A rotating game mode that is active for each Iron Banner event. Uses CBMM. (favours connection only)
- Access Iron Banner from the Portal.
  - Complete Daily and Weekly Objectives to unlock Event Track Items, which reset every Iron Banner.
An Iron Banner Seal is available to complete and gild, which you can also access via the Portal.

Earning & Focusing Gear

Each Season, Lord Saladin will offer either a new or reprised set of Armour and Weapons that you can acquire by playing Iron Banner matches.
Once you have acquired Iron Banner gear, you have a chance of getting that loot to drop from completing Iron Banner matches.
You can also purchase legacy or armour that you have already acquired in exchange for materials.
Effective in Season 20, players can focus Legacy Gear, even if they haven’t yet obtained it!
Items like shaders, emblems, Ghost projections, and other cosmetics that players could previously earn in the game, will be added to match rewards.

Quick Lore − Lord Saladin

Lord Saladin Forge is a Titan Guardian and one of two known survivors of the original Iron Lords. He was one of the founders of the Iron Lords and helped end the Dark Age of Risen Warlords to establish the City Age. However, most of his comrades perished in a battle to contain SIVA, causing Saladin to dedicate his life to maintaining a watch on the Plaguelands to ensure SIVA never emerged again while also fighting to protect The Last City from threats. In time, he established the Iron Banner to keep the memory of the fallen Iron Lords alive and train the new Guardians in the ways of old.

After sitting out of the Red War due to lacking his Light, Saladin watched for several years as the Vanguard struggled against new threats and the Arrival of the Black Fleet. When the Cabal Empress Caiatl arrived and sought to subjugate humanity, Saladin was tasked by Zavala with leading a strike force to keep her from rallying her forces. After an alliance was eventually formed, the Vanguard and Caiatl worked together to face Savathûn’s Lucent Hive. This alliance, already in a fragile state, was nearly shattered when an incident occurred with Crow and Caiatl’s forces. When determining the fate of Crow, Saladin stepped in offering his life as tribute. Although the Empress spared his life, Lord Saladin was given the title of Bracus Forge and was bound to her forces until the end of time.

Bracus Forge, now Valus Forge, has become a notable member of the Cabal War Council. Recently, Valus Forge and Empress Caiatl reworked the Iron Banner and shaped it into something new…

Information extracted from Destinypedia and Ishtar Collective. To view lore entries from Ishtar Collective, click here.

Seasonal Information

Game Rules & Tips

Select from the collapsed sections below to learn more about the various Iron Banner modes.

Eruption

Game Objective: In Iron Banner: Eruption, players are tasked with earning kill streaks, with each new elimination providing significant power-ups as a match goes on.
General Game Mechanics:
- One kill earns you one point, but two kills in a row will apply the “Surging” buff to your Guardian.
- With this effect active, players will begin to glow and each new kill in their streak will generate 10% Super energy and 20% grenade, melee, and class energy.
- They’ll also earn three points per elimination, and on the fifth kill, will become “Primed.”
- Once Primed, everyone on your team will gain 5% Super and 10% grenade, melee, and class energy, while you’ll gain 12% Super and 5% grenade, melee, and class energy per kill, and three points per kill.
- The catch here is that you’ll have a 15-second timer applied which will cause you to “erupt” once it reaches zero, resetting your streak and ending the perks for your teammates…and also killing you.
Notes:
- When primed, you’ll be visible to the opposing team on the map and they’ll gain three points each time they eliminate you.
- Your own team can also see you wherever you are on the map, and more than one player can be Primed at a time.

Control

Game Objective: In Iron Banner: Control, the core gameplay is to capture zones and eliminate combatants.
General Game Mechanics:
- Capture zones like you would in regular Control. Gain 2 points for each zone your team controls at each time interval.
- When your team controls 2 zones, your team will have zone advantage which will grant you 2 points per kill.
- When your team controls 3 zones, the hunt begins, which means zones are locked down for a short duration and all kills are 3 points each during this time.

Fortress

Game Objective: In Iron Banner: Fortress, the core gameplay is to score more points than your opponent by capturing and defending zones; the hunt will activate twice per match.
General Game Mechanics:
- Capture zones like you would in regular Control. Gain 2 points for each zone your team controls at each time interval.
- When your team controls 2 zones, your team will have zone advantage which will grant you 4 points at each time interval.
- When your team controls all 3 zones, your team will have a power play. Your team will gain 6 points at each time interval.
- When the hunt is active, Empress Caiatl will send a high-value zone via Drop pod.
  - This zone is quick to capture and awards a large number of points over a shorter period of time.

Tribute

A variation of Supremacy, where players drop crests upon death.
Players will be able to deposit Crests at tribute stations to earn points for their team.
Banking many Crests at once can trigger a Hunt phase, which activates a special tribute station and increases the value of all Crests deposited for one minute of gloriously chaotic gameplay.
Other Guardians won’t be the only things guarding these high-value tribute stations: Caiatl will be intervene!

What’s New in Iron Banner!