Let's talk about how game outcomes and gameplay affect your rank (also known as your MMR) in VALORANT.
VALORANT officially launches on June 2nd, and we couldn’t be more excited!
I’ve spent some time inside Valorant competitive queuing as solo or in a group. I started my rank at Gold 1 and I am currently Platnium 3, ready for Diamond.
VALORANT calculates your rating not just with wins and losses, but also the way you play. Let's explore the different ways your MMR is affected:
Losing rank
The biggest metric to how VALORANT calculates your rank is wins and losses. Playing well in your games allows you to mitigate any rating loss during your losses.
This is a difficult metric to gauge when playing if you don’t understand how everything is compiled and added up for overall rating gain and loss. It is more than just kills, you need to be an effective teammate.
When you lose a game and play poorly, you will be punished heavily. VALORANT takes losing as the biggest piece of the puzzle, so if you are bottom fragging and not supporting your team, you will more likely than not lose a ton of rating or worse, lose a whole rank.
The thing you need to focus on when playing is consistency. If you are consistently playing poorly, you will be sorted into a rank where you will start to have some success.
The big reasons why rank decay are missing in VALORANT is because the ranking system will find a way to put you where you belong, even if you do not agree with the rank.
Losing in VALORANT will typically give you competition that is lower than what you previously faced so the ability to climb out of a losing streak is always available.
There is always time to grind back the rating you’ve lost and to find a newer and higher rank.
Gaining rank
Winning in VALORANT will always put you on a path to play with better competition. If you are playing better than people ranked higher than you (both on your team and on the opposing team) you will benefit greatly from the algorithm rewarding you with a higher rating boost.
Being a great team player on a winning team will look to give you Team MVP or Match MVP over a player who is top fragging on your team. VALORANT understands which team members are contributing to the success and will reward accordingly.
Promotions to new ranks will come when you’ve gotten six (6) consecutive rating gains, or little green arrows. There will be games when you lose your rating will break even, saving you from having to win extra games or play out of your mind to catch back up. This system allows you to accurately know and predict when your rank up games are coming.
When you are playing well you can be confident in the VALORANT ranking system to properly reward you with rating gain. Everything you would want to understand about your play is listed in your stats page after each game. This is how the rating gain and loss weighs your contributions to your team and being aware of this during your games will make you a better teammate and more complete player overall.
So go out, solo-yolo or find a team to queue with and start grinding ranks!
When the rank reset (at game launch) happens on June 2nd, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the new players. Good luck on your new ranks!
Read more
- How to Unlock All Agents in Valorant
- Valorant Act 3 Competitive Changes: What We Know
- How Valorant Competitive Ranking Works
- Valorant: Omen Tips and Tricks
Find other Valorant players, streamers, clips, and more on the official SteelSeries Discord server!