Love and Deepspace Tier List: How We Rank the Love Interests

There is no single, official Love and Deepspace tier list, and anyone who hands you one is skipping half the story.

Xavier, Zayne, Rafayel, Sylus, and Caleb get ranked on at least four different scoreboards by four different kinds of players, and those lists rarely agree with each other.

That disagreement is the actual story worth writing about, so this piece walks through every axis instead of pretending one exists.

How We Built This Love and Deepspace Tier List

We are not scoring these five men on vibes alone. The four axes that experienced players actually argue over are romance and personality fit, global popularity and platform heat, combat and companion performance, and banner or account value.

Each axis produces a different winner, and a player who mains Zayne for the writing might rank Rafayel first for combat. We kept the axes separate on purpose rather than mashing them into one fake composite score.

As of late August 2026, the roster is locked at five. Infold cancelled a planned sixth love interest, Valko, and confirmed publicly that no additional love interests are coming.

Development going forward is focused on deepening the five who already exist. That decision reshapes every ranking conversation below, so we cover it in detail further down.

The Five Love Interests at a Glance

All five were connected to the player in past or parallel lives, and that history is what powers their myth cards and companion combat forms.

Love Interest	Age	Height	Evol	Role
Xavier	23 (officially; older in lore)	185 cm	Light	Deepspace Hunter, neighbor, coworker
Zayne	27	186 cm	Ice	Cardiac surgeon at Akso Hospital
Rafayel	24	183 cm	Fire	Painter and Lemurian sea god
Sylus	28	190 cm	Energy Manipulation	Leader of Onychinus in the N109 Zone
Caleb	25	188 cm	Gravity	Childhood friend, Farspace Fleet Colonel

Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel launched together in January 2024. Sylus followed in mid-2024, and Caleb joined as a full love interest in January 2025 after first appearing as a tragic side character.

Affinity conversations turn openly romantic around Lover rank 50, though flirtation shows up in cards and dialogue well before that point.

See Also: Aurum Pass Love and Deepspace: Full Diamond ROI Breakdown

Ranking by Romance and Personality Fit

This is the axis most players actually care about, and it splits along fairly consistent archetypes.

Xavier reads as the quiet protector: sleepy, steady, and built around long-game loyalty rather than fireworks.

Zayne is the ice that melts slowly, a restrained and intellectual romance with dry humor layered under a caretaker instinct.

Rafayel is the dramatic artist and merfolk god, playful and visually driven, which is why his fans call themselves Miss Bodyguards.

Sylus plays as dark romance royalty: direct, possessive, and wealthy, with dragon and vampire myth forms feeding a “kitten” persona that dominates thirst edits.

Caleb carries the heaviest trauma of the five and writes as devoted to the point of unsettling, which either becomes a player’s favorite thing about him or the reason they skip his route entirely.

Community surveys consistently turn up the same pairing pattern. Zayne and Sylus often trade the main and second-main slot for the same player. Xavier and Rafayel fans overlap with that group less.

Caleb tends to become a second main for people who already picked Sylus or Rafayel first. When players describe what actually hooked them, the answers repeat: Xavier’s calm, Zayne’s intellect, Rafayel’s fun, Sylus’s confidence, Caleb’s devotion.

Ranking by Global Popularity and Trend Heat

Popularity and romance preference are not the same axis, and treating them as one is how tier lists go wrong.

A mid-2026 popularity read that combined search interest, story discussion, banner chatter, and fanbase stability landed roughly like this:

• S-tier: Xavier (the stable long-term favorite) and Sylus (the fastest-rising)
• A-tier: Zayne (slow-burn writing carries him) and Rafayel (a loyal, visual-first core)
• Rising: Caleb, whose search growth is catching up as his story deepens

The platform split behind those numbers is consistent too. Reddit skews toward Xavier and Zayne analysis threads. TikTok edits favor Sylus and Xavier.

X leans Sylus and Rafayel for art and banner talk. YouTube pull and story guides cluster around Xavier, Sylus, and Caleb.

Chinese platforms tell a different story at times, since organized fan-voting campaigns can push Zayne or Caleb to the top of a poll in a way that raw search volume does not.

Sylus in particular functions as the franchise’s commercial engine. Reporting out of China has described one early limited banner clearing roughly 41 million RMB on its first day, and the recurring fandom joke that “wives of Sylus are richer than him” comes directly from the billboards and drone shows his fans have funded.

See Also: Love and Deepspace Xavier Birthday Event 2025: Everything You Need to Know

Ranking by Combat and Companion Performance

Combat is not a side mode bolted onto the romance. Producer Lizi’s stated design line is that combat is romance, meaning you fight beside your chosen love interest rather than around him. 

Every love interest unlocks multiple companion kits through myth pairs, and the third myth forms currently sit at the top of the power curve, close enough together that raw numbers rarely settle an argument.

A community combat ranking built around the Version 5.0 companion meta put Rafayel’s Lemurian Sea God and Zayne’s God of Annihilation at the top, with Xavier’s Lumiere and King of Darknight, Caleb’s X-02, and Sylus’s Silverwing Fiend one step behind.

Ease of play tells a slightly different story: Caleb’s Netherlord kit is widely considered the hardest third myth to pilot well, while Sylus’s Silverwing Fiend is among the more forgiving ones.

Each love interest keeps a distinct combat identity. Xavier runs on light and dodge-based mobility. Zayne brings freeze control, shields, and sustain healing. Rafayel deals burn and disorder damage across multiple waves.

Sylus specializes in single-target burst that ignores defense. Caleb blends burn and disorder after later balance passes, and his X-02 kit remains a strong, accessible clear option.

The advice that experienced players repeat is simple: build the myth of the man you actually main, because preference and stellactrum coverage matter more than chasing whichever kit currently tops a stranger’s list.

Ranking by Banner and Account Value

Value on this axis moves with every new banner, so treat any snapshot as temporary. Multi-love-interest events like Mortality’s Tenderness, Lingering Lust, and Throne of Eros reward collectors who spread investment across several men. Single-love-interest myth banners reward players who commit hard to one main.

Caleb still has a shorter card history than the original trio, which leaves some Caleb mains feeling resource-starved compared with day-one players.

Sylus went through an early stretch with fewer permanent-pool cards than Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel, and that gap drew visible complaints from the Chinese player base at the time.

See Also: Love and Deepspace Edge of Continuum Event Guide: Unlock Zayne’s Divine Myth, Memories, and Rewards

A Closer Look at Each Love Interest

1. Xavier

Xavier is the silver-blond Deepspace Hunter who sleeps standing up and lives one floor above the player.

Behind the “23-year-old coworker” framing sits a much heavier truth: he is a Backtracker from the future, prince of Philos, who came back to stop his world and his version of the player from dying.

He ranks consistently high because his emotional tone is the safest entry point for new players, his soft-romance appeal carries real weight in the Japanese and global audience, and his combat kit has stayed relevant across Lightseeker, Lumiere, and King of Darknight rather than spiking once and fading.

Fans shorthand him as the sleepy prince, and “emotional safety” is the phrase that comes up again and again in why-I-main-him threads.

2. Zayne

Zayne is the Ice Evol cardiac surgeon who also happens to be the player’s childhood friend, tied together by the Aether Core in her heart.

He does not carry past-life memory the way Xavier and Rafayel do, but he is haunted by nightmares from a parallel version of himself called Dawnbreaker, and his connection to the god Astra feeds into his terrifying God of Annihilation myth form.

His writing gets credit for the best “adult restraint” arc among the five, he wins outright on some Chinese popularity polls, and his combat kit is the one most players reach for in long fights thanks to its shields and freeze control.

He is also the most common dual-main pairing with Sylus for players drawn to mature, controlled personalities.

3. Rafayel

Rafayel is the Fire Evol painter who hires the player as his bodyguard, the shortest of the five and by far the most theatrical.

He is Lemurian merfolk and a literal sea god, bound by a past-life debt that says restoring his people requires taking the player’s heart, and his entire route is him trying not to go through with that.

His myth line runs from God of the Tides through Abysswalker to Lemurian Sea God, a kit combat players still rate near the top of the current meta.

He anchored the game’s Chinese popularity numbers at launch, his cards get consistent praise for visual direction, and his fandom, the self-declared Miss Bodyguards, is unusually loyal. Updates centered on him still move download charts well into 2026.

4. Sylus

Sylus is the tallest and oldest of the five, a red-eyed crime boss running Onychinus out of the N109 Zone with a pet crow named Mephisto.

He sits outside the Hunter chain of command entirely, and that outsider status is the point: he is arrogant in rooms he already owns, gentle with wounded strays, and blunt with the player in a way none of the others are.

He posted the fastest global growth of any love interest after launch, drives the highest commercial numbers in the game by a wide margin, and dominates TikTok and X edit culture. 

His combat performance is strong even though some of his myth-rotation timing draws complaints from mains who feel he was under-supported early on.

5. Caleb

Caleb, Gravity Evol and Farspace Fleet Colonel, started the game as a beloved side character presumed dead after the Cascade before returning as a full love interest in early 2025 with a harder edge and a longer list of secrets.

He carries the heaviest trauma of the five, and his devoted-to-the-point-of-scary romance tone is either a player’s favorite thing about him or the exact reason they skip his route.

He ranks as rising rather than locked S-tier mostly because of timing: less total card history than the original three, a still-forming fanbase, and writing that polarizes readers more than it unifies them.

His combat kits, X-02 first and the later Nether myths, are excellent and comparatively straightforward to pilot at a high level.

The Valko Cancellation and Why It Changes the Rankings

In June 2026, Infold announced a sixth love interest, Valko, slated to arrive in Version 6.0 on July 9.

Eight days later, the studio cancelled him entirely and pledged that no further love interests would be added, a decision that arrived alongside other Version 6.0 systems like Home 2.0 and the AR Photobooth, which still shipped as planned. Players received mail compensation and a 30-day login wish as part of the walk-back.

The backlash behind the cancellation was mixed. Some players did not want a sixth love interest diluting focus on the existing five, others objected to the werewolf-style design direction, and a separate controversy spiraled into legal territory that Infold said it would pursue.

After the cancellation, a large petition asked the studio to reverse course, and reported spending activity dropped sharply in the following weeks.

As of late August, hashtags asking for Valko’s return still circulate on X from mains across all five existing love interests.

That decision is why current tier lists feel different from a typical live-service ranking. No sixth contender is waiting in the wings to reshuffle anything. The list of five is now closed, and all ranking arguments going forward occur within that fixed set.

Community Culture Around Tier Lists

The official English-language subreddit removes posts that rank, compare, or bash the love interests against each other, because those threads reliably start fan wars.

TierMaker templates and ranking videos exist elsewhere, but the main community hub stays deliberately thin on public tier content compared with sites built around other gacha franchises.

What experienced players share instead: who they main and why, card value for a single banner, and combat clears organized by companion kit with the standing disclaimer to pull for the man you actually want, not the kit with the best numbers.

A running joke on X sums up the fandom’s actual temperature: Xavier has alien issues, Zayne has doctor issues, Rafayel has fish issues, Sylus has no issues so fans invent some for him, Caleb has questionable issues, and everyone stays anyway.

How to Build Your Own List Without the Drama

Score each love interest across a few separate questions instead of one blended score: would you reread his route, do his daily texts and Home interactions hold your attention, is his current myth form fun for you specifically to play, does his next banner fit what you have saved, and does his fandom culture match how you want to spend time online.

If the first two questions land on S and the combat question lands on A, he is still your S. Combat power creep in this game is real but shallow compared with plain preference.

See Also: Love and Deepspace Characters, The Complete List

Every Love and Deepspace tier list you read, including this one, is really four lists stapled together: romance fit, popularity, combat performance, and banner value, and none of them are required to agree.

Xavier holds the safest, most durable S-tier spot for comfort and combat longevity. Sylus wins commercially and culturally by a wide margin. Zayne owns the slow-burn writing crown and the long-fight combat meta.

Rafayel keeps a loyal, visual-first core that outlasts banner cycles. Caleb is still climbing, and the Valko cancellation means he will keep climbing inside a roster that Infold has confirmed will not grow past five.

Share your current main in the comments below! Tell us about your most painful myth pull, and let us know how your Caleb or Sylus clears are turning out following the recent balance updates. We would love to hear if the Valko cancellation influenced your choice for a second-main!