Valorant competitive queue and rank rating changes explained

Valorant patch 3.10 is set to arrive tomorrow. Before deploying the new patch, developers have revealed some of the details of the upcoming update with the patch note.

With the new update, Valorant developers have made some key changes to the competitive queue and rank ratings (RR). However, players seem confused with the changes made in the game regarding the competitive queue. In this article, players will have a clear idea of the changes in the game.

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Valorant players are restrained from the 4-stack competitive queue from patch 3.10

With every update of the game, Valorant devs have tried to enhance the gaming experience of the players and also attempted to resolve the common issues players are facing. Players often complain about smurfing and toxicity in ranked games. According to Matthew Le, Competitive Producer of Riot Games, the developers have decided to change the competitive queue system to resolve this issue.

Here are some changes that were made in the Valorant competitive queue:

1) Players can play 5-stack queue

As of today, Valorant players can only play in 5-stack queues before, below Diamond 3 rank. But starting tomorrow, everyone can play in the 5-stack queue. However, players will receive a low Elo rating for the win.

Besides that, four players cannot queue together in ranked games. They can only go with 3-stack queues and 5-stack queues.

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2) Elo Rating (RR)

Valorant devs have also made some changes to the rank rating. Here are some of the details:

A) If everyone in party is Diamond 2 and below:

• Players can expect increased queue times as they will face a team against another 5 stack of similar average MMR.
• Rank Rating gains and losses will be reduced if gamers play in a 5 stack outside of Valorant's current rank restrictions rules. For example, suppose in a 5-stack queue, the lowest team member is Silver 1, and the highest is Platinum 1. In that case, players will receive a 50% RR reduction as it is outside the Valorant's standard group restrictions. But if the lowest team member is Bronze 1, players will receive a 75% RR reduction for the same issue.

B) If one or more members in party is Diamond 3 and above:

• Players can expect more increased queue times as they will face a team against another 5 stack of similar average MMR.
• Players can face up to 50%-90% RR reduction. For example: if in a 5-stack queue the lowest team member is Diamond 2 and others are Immortals, players will receive a 75% RR reduction. If it is Diamond 3, players will receive a 75% RR reduction.

C) If one or more members in party is Radiant:

• Queue times will be increased just like the previous ones.
• A minimum of 75% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks, including a member from these ranks. Playing with someone below Radiant rank will automatically reduce the potential RR by 90%.

It will be interesting to see if these rules help Valorant to be free from smurfers and toxicity or not.