It’s a bit more obtuse than we would prefer, but it’s finally happening agents: Valorant is getting its ranked mode. No longer will you be stuck in a lobby with players that appear to be aiming using a steering wheel, or presume that their visibility to the enemy team is based entirely on movement. Further, proverbial gods of aiming will be properly relegated to their appropriate high levels, meaning we’ll have far more opportunities to actually retake a site before getting dinked from an unknown location.
Yet the precise when of ranked being introduced is still relatively unanswered. Riot Games has stated that the awaited ranked game mode of the closed-beta will be introduced once the dust settles on the newest patch that has already came out this morning for both European servers, and those based in North America. This likely means that we can expect Valorant ranked to arrive today, or at the very least, sometime this week.
It’s admittedly not a precise science that may stymie those looking to take a day off from work to grind a couple of dozen matches, but it’s far more than we had yesterday to go on, so this is at least a step in the right direction.
We do know, however, the various ranks of Valorant that will likely be introduced (unless something drastically changed in the past two weeks). There are seven ranks in total for competitive play, not including the unranked nomenclature.
Valorant Ranks as of April 3 – Riot Games
It’s worth noting if you’ve never played a massively competitive game that you’ll likely be ranked far lower than you would presume initially, depending on when you finally knock out your placements. It’s not uncommon for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players with solid aim and mechanics to be placed somewhere around the middle based solely on how popular and hotly contested the rank system is.
On the other hand, if you can grind your way to the upper tiers, you’ll have a wealth of bragging rights that you can lord over plebs in various forums. Fun times all around, unless you’re silver and below.
The introduction of ranked play is a fantastic thing for players that are currently having the times of their lives in the closed-beta, as it ensures that matches will be far better contested, and unlikely to be dominated by a singular entity that happened to get thrown into the mix (on the other team). Stay tuned to Valorant‘s Twitter feed to know precisely when ranked drops.
UPDATE: Riot took to Twitter to announce today is not the day for ranked to release. They are currently monitoring the game on a ‘day to day’ basis, and will turn on ranked once they’re sure that the playing field is fair.
