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Riot Games’Valorantis an incredibly fun game, especially for players who love thatcompetitive thrill. While several players don’t care about climbing up the ranks in Valorant, there are many whowish to reach higher ranks. However, before you start playing Ranked, it’s important to understand how exactly Valorant’s rank system or game mode works.
Valorant: Best Settings For A Smooth Play
You can improve your Valorant play significantly by exploring these in-game (and PC) General, Video and Audio settings.
Let’s be honest, Valorant’s rank system isn’t straightforward, and the game mode comes with some restrictions. Even players who have been playing the game since launch don’t really understand everything about Act Rank, the Reset period, or restrictions that come in the Competitive mode. Well, don’t fret, as we are here to explain it all.
Valorant Ranks In Order
There arenine tiers of Valorant ranks, and you start your Competitive journey with “Unranked.” After that, you start climbing up from Iron to Radiant.
Platinum 1
Platinum 2
Platinum 3
Ascendant 1
Ascendant 2
Ascendant 3
Immortal 1
Immortal 2
Immortal 3
To climb up each rank, like from Bronze 3 to Silver 1, you’ll need exactly 100 RR. Basically, Riot rewards you with RR when you win a Competitive match.The number of RRs you gain will depend on your performanceand the agent you’ve selected. For instance, if you wereplaying as a Sentineland still managed to top frag and become the MVP, you’d get more RR than the Duelist in your team who didn’t contribute much in terms of kills.
Similarly, you lose RRs if you lose a Competitive match. You climb up a rank as soon as you’ve gained 100 RR, and you rank down if you’ve lost 100 RR after several consecutive losses.
What Is Rank Protection?
Rank Protection is a relatively new rule that Riot has imposed in Valorant’s Ranked mode. Basically, this feature protects players from ranking down immediately after they’ve lost all RR on their current rank. Let’s say you were at Silver 1 with 5 RR and lost a Competitive match. In that case, you would instantly rank down to Bronze 3 without Rank Protection. With Valorant’s Rank Protection system, it prevents just that.
The system will take your RR to O instead of taking you down one rank. This gives you one more chance to maintain your current rank. That said, if you lose a match at 0 RR on any particular rank, you rank down, and your total RR goes below 80.
What Is Act Rank In Valorant?
Valorant moves on to the next Act every few months, and theAct Rankis basicallyyour win at the highest rank during the previous or ongoing rank. Your Act Rank shows your overall skill during an Act. The Act Rank appears in the form of a Hollow triangle, which is filled with your highest-ranked wins. If you’ve won most matches at Silver, the Act rank will mostly be filled with Silver; however, if your highest-ranked win was at Gold 1, the topmost part of the triangle will appear Gold, and your Act Rank will be Gold 1.
TheAct Rank resets in each Act, but your previous Act Rank is taken into consideration when you play the next placement matches. In short, if your Act Rank was Silver 1 during the previous Act, don’t expect to get Gold 3 even if you win the placement matches in the next Act.
Valorant: How To Install And Use Tracker.gg
Tracker.gg is a great tracker for Valorant players. This guide explains how to download and use the application to track your progress in the game.
Valorant Ranked Eligibility & Restrictions
Reach Level 20 To Play Competitive
New Valorant players can’t get into Competitive straightway. Previously, new players had to play 10 Unrated matches to be eligible to play Ranked. However, now that the game has become much more complicated, Riot Games has made the criteria a little more difficult. Now, every player must reach Level 20 to play Competitive. You canreach the minimum thresholdbyplaying Unratedand other game modes.
Personally, it usuallytakes me around 30 Unrated matches to reach Level 20. Of course, this might feel like a lot, but honestly, playing that many matches is crucial for a new player to understand the game. Also, let’s not forget that this also discourages High Elo players from creating new accounts and smurfing at Low Elo.
4-Stag In Competitive
Apparently, Riot Games has restricted 4-Stag in Competitive —if there are four people in a single party, they can’t queue for Ranked. They’ll have to find one player or lose one to be able to queue. If there are 4 people at a party, the solo queue player generally goes through a bad experience. The four people in the party may not communicate with the solo queue player or get toxic, and Riot removed 4-Stag to prevent just that.
Rank Disparity
Two or Three players in the party can only queue together if there’s not much rank disparity between the lowest and the highest-ranked player. For instance, if the lowest-ranked player in the party is Bronze 3, then the highest-ranked player must not be above Silver 3. If the lowest rank is Silver 2, the Highest can’t be above Gold 2 — and so on.
The Rank Disparity doesn’t affect your ability to queue during 5-stag, though. If you are 5 players in a team, the lowest-ranked player can be Bronze, and the Highest-ranked can be Platinum. However, in this case, the RR system is less rewarding.
Generally, you gain 25% less RR if you’re in a party of 5 and are playing with a higher-ranked player.
Valorant Rank Distribution
How Many Players Are Radiant?
Rank Distribution in Valorant sheds some light on what percentage of total players are at certain ranks. Players may want to know this to find out exactly what percentage of Valorant players are Radiant or Immortal. Well, as expected, the maximum number of players are still playing at lower Elo, and only a few are sitting at Immortal or Radiant. Here’s the complete rank distribution for February 2024, as reported byesportstale.
% of Players
Best Valorant Agents For Each Map
It’s crucial that you are using the right agents for each map in Valorant. This list breaks down the best Agents to bring to each map.
