When will Valorant's newest map Lotus be available in Unrated and Competitive queues?

Lotus is yet to be made available in Valorant's Competitive and Unrated queues. The map is available in a dedicated Swiftplay queue, letting players learn and experience Lotus before facing it in a competitive setup. One can also hop onto a custom match to understand the map's unique features more personally.

The detailed yet alluring Indian map will soon be added to ranked and unrated queues through patch 6.1, which is also expected to address some inevitable Lotus-related issues reported after patch 6.0 was deployed.

Valorant's ninth tactical map, Lotus, was launched on January 10, 2023, through Episode 6 Act 1, which is the newest competitive time frame in the game. Lotus features three sites, like the iconic map Haven, and encourages intricate strategies, which will bring an exciting change to the game's Ranked spectrum.

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Lotus is expected to launch for Valorant's Competitive and Unranked modes soon

Riot's Valorant team proclaimed during Episode 6's launch that Lotus would be available for the Competitive and Unrated queues via the game's upcoming patch 6.1. The team is yet to announce the release date for patch 6.1, but players can take a fair guess.

As per the latest patch notes, Lotus has been restricted to a special Swiftplay-queue for "one week" since its launch on January 10. Considering the official statement, the new map is expected to be introduced to the Unrated and Competitive queue via Patch 6.1 on January 18, seven days after its launch.

That said, Valorant's eighth map Pearl was launched into the ranked queue two weeks after its launch. The team prefers to introduce new maps to the game's ranked spectrum after a sufficient time gap, letting players get used to the new features before playing it competitively.

If Riot decides to go by the two-week trend, patch 6.1 may show up a week later, right after a PBE phase. Per the Valorant PBE Reddit page, the next beta testing phase is scheduled to commence on January 20 and is expected to run until January 22.

A public update will follow the beta testing phase, possibly patch 6.1, which is expected to go live on January 24 P.T. If so, Lotus will be inducted into Valorant's Competitive and Unrated queues for the first time January 24.

Being a three-site map, Lotus encourages flexible rotations and creative space control on both sides. It is undoubtedly a unique tactical map to be made available in the popular competitive first-person shooter.

Despite its resemblance to Haven, the map will require players to focus on understanding all its distinctive features. Otherwise, playing a ranked Lotus match will be confusing and result in unfavorable outcomes.

Lotus is expected to stir the map meta majorly upon its addition to Valorant's Competitive and Unrated queues. Players will find it hard to tackle quirky playstyles and lineups unless they have spent considerable time playing the Lotus-special Swiftyplay mode or custom matches.

That said, the difficulty will seemingly reduce as time passes and players get used to the map and its quirkiness.