Want to know about Valorant ranks and how the ranking system works? Riot’s Valorant has an ascending ladder of titles to sort the player base by ability. Whether you’re starting out as a lowly Iron or maintaining your dominance as a mighty Immortal, if you play Valorant competitively your life is governed by the ranking system.
Like all competitive FPS games, Valorant has a couple of different ways it measures ranking progress and the overall rating of players against each other. Each player has an overall Valorant rank, but there’s also a dedicated ‘Act rank’ for each act. On top of that, there’s also a concept called ‘rank rating’, which is connected to MMR. Here is everything you need to know about Valorant ranks, the current rank distribution, and competitive play.
Here is a complete list of Valorant ranks:
Valorant Act rank
While your rank is an overall (and accurate) reflection of your skills and abilities, you also earn a separate Act rank as you play through each individual act. Your Act rank is officially the highest ranked win, which Riot likes to call your “proven skill”.
Rank distribution is important in any competitive shooter, and Valorant is no exception. Riot itself has shared information on this as far back as Episode 3 Act 1, where the studio said it was concerned there were too many people in the lower ranks and not enough making it through to the higher tiers. While previous months have shown stronger figures, the start of 2023 has seen a drop in rank saturation, with nearly 60% of players in Iron, Bronze, and Silver, suggesting less time spent in game, or an increase in difficulty.
Valorant rank placements and restrictions
Since Episode 4 Act 1, in order to earn ranks in Valorant’s competitive mode you need to have an account level of at least 20. Once you’ve hit that threshold, you can engage in ranked play. At the start of every episode, you need to play five placement matches, but for every Act 2 and 3 within an episode, you only need to play one placement match – your rank resets at the start of every Act.
In terms of rank disparity, there are only restrictions for groups of two or three players. If the lowest person in the team is Iron or Bronze, then the highest can be no higher than Silver (any tier). If the lowest is Silver, then the highest can be no higher than Gold (any tier). If Gold is lowest, then Platinum is highest – again, any tier.
