Valorant Episode 2 competitive changes

The beginning of Episode 2 in Valorant witnessed a bunch of changes being made to the competitive structure in the game.

A list of all the changes coming to Valorant's competitive structure in Episode 2 are:

• Regional Leaderboards
• Shift to solo/duo premade cap for Immortal and Radiant players
• Progression arrows being replaced by a progress bar denoting numerical progress

All these changes are expected to have a significant impact on the quality of life in Valorant. Given how vague and complicated the Progression Arrows system was, the progress bar feature will allow much more rank granularity. However, as Episode 2 makes its way on Valorant, it remains to be seen how much of an impact these changes will have.

Here's everything to know about the changes made to the competitive structure of Valorant in Episode 2.

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Competitive changes in Valorant Episode 2

Regional Leaderboards

Leaderboards in Valorant (Image via Riot Games)

• In-Game Leaderboard(along with a web version on playvlaorant.com available within 24 hours less of Episode 2 going live)
• Radiant players (top 500 per region)
• Immortal players (roughly ~1% of rank players per region)
• Immortal will also only be one rank now, using the Immortal 3 icon
• Leaderboard Rank and Rank Rating (we call it RR for short)
• Riot ID, Title, and player card
• Games won per Act
• Ability to anonymize your name as “Secret Agent”
• Unique per region NA, EU, APAC, BR, LATAM, KR
• Updates in real time
• Requirements to get on the leaderboard:
• Requires 50 ranked account games to place on leaderboard (retroactive for returning players)
• Requires playing at least 1 Competitive game a week (within 7 day period) to stay on the leaderboard
• Banned players will not show on the leaderboard

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Core Rank System

Valorant's previous progression arrow rank system (Image via Riot Games)

• No more progression arrows.
• New Progress bar and Rank Rating show proximity to next rank
• Rank progress bar will display for Iron to Diamond. For those at Immortal and Radiant, this will shift to showing their Leaderboard rank.
• Immortal 1, 2, and 3 are now all fall under “Immortal”
• Players will no longer have their rank hidden (changed to ‘?’) for inactivity
• This will now only happen if players are in placements

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Rank Rating (RR)

New Rank Ratings for Valorant (Image via Riot Games)

• Majority of RR comes from wins or losses (match outcome)
• Players will always gain RR on a win and lose RR on a loss
• On a win, players will gain between 10 and 50 RR
• Min 5 RR gain for Diamond+
• On a loss players will lose between 0 and 30 RR
• Max drop of 50 RR on a loss for Diamond+
• On a draw players will gain a max of 20 RR (performance-based)
• Only for Iron through Diamond, where Valorant takes individual performance into account.
• Demotion protection: Players must lose at 0 RR to demote
• If players demote, they will not go below 80 RR at that rank
• Promotion boost where players start at minimum 10 RR on a win
• Decisiveness of a win and exceptional performance at lower ranks for individuals can help players earn rank faster (and more quickly boost smurfs to accurate ranks)
• New rank ceremony and celebration visual for getting promotions
• Rank info page updated along with providing info around rank rewards