The latest update post from the Valorant team outlines Riot Games’ plan to implement competitive matchmaking, or ranked mode, in the closed beta. The post includes some new details about competitive matches, as well as the requirements to enter ranked play. Best of all, Joe Ziegler confirmed on Twitter that competitive matchmaking should arrive in-game this week.
The full post on competitive matchmaking is quite long, so let’s take a look at the essential details you need to know before you start climbing the ranks. We’ll start with the ranks themselves.
Valorant ranks and tiers.
As you can see from the image above, there are eight ranks in total. Each one has three tiers, except for the highest rank of Valorant. The Valorant team has revealed that the most important aspect for improving your rank is winning games. However, your individual performance can result in you climbing or falling faster in wins and losses. Personal performance will also play less of a role over time as the ranking system better understands your skill level.
Valorant‘s competitive matchmaking also considers how decisive your victories are when assigning rank. So, show your opponents no mercy. At the Valorant rank, the only thing that matters when it comes to increasing your rating is winning.
Valorant competitive match details
Before you can start your ranked journey, you will need to complete 20 unrated matches. Unrated will be present throughout the Valorant beta, but competitive matchmaking might be removed at times to tweak the system.
You will be able to queue ranked with a full party of five players. However, all players need to be within two ranks (or six tiers) of one another. This is to prevent boosting, but, as we’ve seen with games like Overwatch and Apex Legends, this does sometimes come with the negative side effect of preventing friends from playing together. Queuing as a party is more likely to match you against other parties.
If you haven’t played a competitive match in 14 days, your rank will not be displayed. But, your rank will also not decay if you don’t play competitive for a while. Finally, the rank you achieve in the Valorant closed beta will not carry over to launch. Beta players will have a considerable advantage over the numerous new players that start playing at that time, though. So, your rank should shoot up considerably faster.
