How Tarik's Pro City 10-man server will affect the state of NA Valorant's ranked matchmaking

Tarik "tarik" Celik is an ex-CS:GO pro and is currently one of the biggest streamers in Valorant. He has over 2.5 million followers on Twitch and is one of the most influential voices in the Valorant scene right now.

Valorant ranked games have always had their share of problems, including players not communicating or listening to comms, smurfing, and in some cases clearly throwing games. Some of these issues permeate even into the highest levels of the ranked experience in Riot Games' tactical shooter.

The North American circuit recently faced a problem where some players were throwing games in Radiant lobbies because they were set to receive benefits from the outcome of matches going a certain way.

As a response to this, tarik came up with an idea, now known as Pro City. Essentially, it allows like-minded players at the top level to compete with each other without the risk of the games being infested by throwers or people who don't want to communicate.

This article will take a look at the potential impact this might have on Valorant's ranked matchmaking in the region.

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SEN tarik's Pro City has taken away the best players from Valorant's official ranked matchmaking in North America

Almost everyone, especially pro players, who played Valorant ranked would get annoyed at the quality of gameplay at the highest levels. Pro City seems like an excellent response to the problem of unsatisfactory ranked experience. However, this might prove quite detrimental for the official ranked ecosystem in the game.

The current Pro City leaderboard has 139 players. Considering only the best Radiant gamers selected by an anonymous council get to play there, 139 out of the 500 in the region would rather be playing 10-man custom games than official Valorant matchmaking. This is because of the guaranteed high-level experience that it will provide.

Since Pro City only lets a select few people in. Many really good players will get left out of it and will be stuck in the official ranked queues with those who are the reason behind the establishment of Pro City.

If players who make it into Pro City continue to stay away from the official ranked queues, with time other players would eventually replace them on the official ranked leaderboard.

However, this might not be a true reflection of their skill levels. Professional esports players playing in the official ranked ecosystem boost the level of gameplay as they bring a lot of experience into the games and often push amateurs to play better.

With them gone from the system entirely, there would be an eventual, slow decay of the level of gameplay in the Radiant lobbies in North America and the leaderboards would display skewed results.

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What Riot Games can do to prevent this from happening?

Riot Games has stayed quiet so far about the whole crypto-thrower scam that took place in North American ranked games, even though it was the trigger for Pro City to come up.

While the developers have been vocal about how important competitive integrity is to the game's ethos, and have also taken several steps to make the ranked ecosystem healthier, silence on their part when it comes to a matter as serious as this can prove dangerous.

Riot Games is surely keeping tabs on this and will hopefully come up with a solution, and soon; one that will incentivize pros to come back to official ranked games and prevent this eventual decay.

Possible solutions include increasing punishments for throwing games on purpose that would discourage people from getting into such schemes. If they are able to come up with a solution that penalizes players for not effectively communicating during games, it would be the cherry on the cake.

All these things would require a major buff to the in-game support and review system in Valorant, and it will thus take time to be implemented. The Premier game mode might also help solve this issue to a large extent. However, with no timeline as to when that is coming, acknowledging the immediate issue and taking measures accordingly will be a good first step.