Valorant’s Act III Competitive Ranking Changes

Valorant ranks1
Image Credit: Riot Games

Valorant’s Act III will bring some changes to the way you can queue up for competitive matches. No longer can you rank up with a lower or higher ranked friend. We go into the details of the dev vlog so you don’t have to!

David “Milkcow” Cole reveals that Act III will make serious changes to the competitive matchmaking and how friends can or cannot queue up with each other. That’s right, Valorant now wishes to control who you rank up with, all in the name of fair play. In Act III you will only be able to queue up with a player that is within three ranks of your current rank. Previously, this was set at 6 ranks, the lead dev Milkcow lays down the details:

We want to bring back more competitive integrity to queue and get you focused on what matters most: winning. We’re going to tighten the restrictions on ranked disparity for the competitive queue, reducing them from a six to a three-rank difference.

Anyone who has played ranked games and is Gold ranked and above knows exactly this problem, Why the hell is the enemy team full of Diamond I players? Or why is there a bronze player on my team ending my win-streak and thus my rank up dreams? It can be frustrating when Valorant is a very skill-focused and intense game where tiny mistakes cost you a match. We won’t even start to rant about rank boosting, let’s leave Pandora’s Box closed for now.

Finally, it was also mentioned that Valorant’s Immortal and Radiant rank will now only look at wins and losses and not combat performance. This means you can more comfortably support and play defensively without worrying about how your low kill count will impact your rank. The changes should roll out sometime next week with the Act III update.

Stay tuned for more Valorant news and check EarlyGame or the EarlyGame Youtube channel for everythinggaming and esports.

Paul Hayes

I did my BA in English Lit. and Language Studies at Western University in Canada and I use to play MTG competitively, but sadly to no success so I write instead! If a game doesn't challenge me, it's not the...