The Valorant Team

VALORANT players!

With the recent release of our DUALITY cinematic, I wanted to talk about where it sits within the wider VALORANT Universe, answer a few popular questions, and tease where we’re headed.

It's been a year since we launched VALORANT! I think it’s safe to say it’s been a wild year for all of you as well. Now, take a moment to reflect and go back in time with me to the moment that VALORANT launched.

DUELIST, introduced two of our Agents, Phoenix & Jett, in a high stakes chase across the rooftops of a European city, for control over a mysterious “package.”

At the conclusion, we witnessed the IGNITION of this package, creating a significant reality distorting effect on a major city, triggering battles across the globe.

Our latest cinematic, DUALITY, starts where DUELIST left off and sheds light on VALORANT’s underlying conflict.

The day after IGNITION, the world is in shock. VALORANT PROTOCOL—a covert operati...

Jay “Sinatraa” Won has violated Rule 8.1 of the VALORANT Global Competition Policy for failing to fully cooperate with the Tournament Operator’s investigation and will be suspended for six months. He will also be required to complete professional conduct training.

Context

After becoming aware of sexual assault allegations made against Jay “Sinatraa'' Won, VALORANT Esports immediately launched an investigation into the matter. Sexual assault allegations are some of the most serious that can be levvied against an individual and the Competitive Operations Team treats all such claims with the gravity they deserve. To conduct the investigation, the Competitive Operations team partnered with Riot’s investigative team to begin an objective and neutral fact-gathering exercise to evaluate whether Sinatraa’s behavior was in conflict with the VCT Global Competition Policy.

During the course of the fact gathering, the Competitive Operations team was info...

After two months of regional Challengers events, we are just a week away from Masters Reykjavik, the first international LAN tournament for VALORANT. More than 2000 teams from seven different regions attempted to qualify for the event, but just 10 will compete in Iceland.

To create the 10 team bracket, the top seeded teams from the two regions with the largest player base, North America and Europe, were seeded into the second round. The remaining teams were randomly seeded with the requirement that teams from the same region could not be put on the same side of the bracket in order to avoid matching against each other in the initial rounds.

...

Replication asks you to push the extremes of what Agent abilities can do in a round. Think of what you can do with five Sage walls? A team of Phoenix can basically make the floor is lava if you cover it with fire. Don’t worry, this mode comes with a “flashguard” so you won’t have to play with sunglasses.

Read how to play below.

REPLICATION RULES

• Best-of-nine Spike mode
  • 80-second rounds
  • 45-second pistol round, with 30-second subsequent rounds
• All players on the same team play as the same Agent (e.g. 5 Sages against 5 Jetts)
  • Agent selection is decided in pre-match voting.
• Abilities, minus ultimates, are refreshed each round
  • Gain +1 ultimate points per round at the start of the round (except Overtime rounds)

• Set amount of credits each round regardless of win/loss
  • Per-round credit amounts:
    ...

With VCT Masters Stage 2 on the horizon, it’s important we don’t get too crazy with balance changes and focus on getting VALORANT in a healthy state just in time for Reykja...

There’s something about VALORANT that came calling for Chris Dang, 20, from the Bay Area, California.

“VALORANT is like a mix of all the FPS games combined, where you’ll see people from so many other competitive FPS games crossover,” Dang said.

That trait lured Dang from his days of heavy PUGing (pick up games) on ESEA and FACEIT—two esports competitive platforms—to reigning at #5 as “Campion” on the Act II VALORANT NA leaderboards.

“VALORANT helped me strive for something. I wasn't really looking forward to anything. I didnt think about going pro in a game and doing something I loved to do. VALORANT brought that to me,” Campion said. “It showed me just how far I could take something if I put my time into it and really focus.”

Campion said he’s played just about every day since the closed beta, and although he only made it to Immortal 2 at first, he’s earned Radiant consistently since VALORANT’s launch.

The beta was when Dang first...

Q

My matches sometimes feel like a coin flip. I feel like I go against players that don't belong in my rank, are smurfs common?

A

Smurfs and Smurfettes, while relatively small in number, are absolutely real and are frustrating to play against. We’ve been collecting and incorporating feedback from all our channels, and have since spun up an investigation into the current state of smurfing in VALORANT.

Because we’re currently deep in this investigation, there is no actionable plan to share just yet. However, we want to at the very least provide insight into the fundamental questions our team is actively tackling:

• How do we identify smurf in our systems, and how often are players running into them?
• Why do players smurf?
• Is there a need, that isn’t being met, that is forcing players to smurf?
• What changes do we need to make in order ...

We’re back with more VCT Game Changers action! The enthusiasm around these tournaments has been incredible, and we’re proud to showcase the talent and skill this community has to offer.

Here’s everything you need to know about Verizon VCT Game Changers NA presented by Dignitas.

TOURNAMENT OVERVIEW

VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers is a year-long program with the goal of creating new opportunities and exposure for women and marginalized genders seeking to participate in VALORANT esports, through a combination of community events and top-tier competition.

Verizon VCT Game Changers NA presented by Dignitas consists of a Double GSL open qualifier (June 19 - 20) and double elimination main event (June 24 - 27). Eight teams will advance from the open qualifiers to compete in the main event, which will feature best-of-three matches until the grand final, which will be a best-of-five showdown. In addit...

The VALORANT Champions Tour will head to Berlin, Germany for Stage 3 Masters. Masters Berlin will begin on September 9th and will bring together 16 teams from around the world to compete for points that will count towards qualification at VALORANT Champions, the final event of the 2021 VCT. The tournament will conclude with a final scheduled to take place on September 19th.

Competition will take place at Verti Music Hall - host of 2019 League of Legends World Championship Group Stage. All matches from Masters Berlin will be broadcast live globally on digital platforms including Twitch.tv and YouTube.

...

Viseth Ung, a 22-year-old VALORANT player from Sacramento, California, wanted to leave his mark on the VALORANT community. So he did what any normal player would do.

He made some rugs.

Ung, who goes by “Villa of Vibes'' on social, posted the first VALORANT rug on his TikTok. There he clips together segments of the nearly four-hour process, from stencil to completion.

“I started seeing people make rugs on TikTok and I wanted to make something based on what I like,” Ung said. “So I thought, why not VALORANT?”

His first VALORANT rug, a Radiant rank icon design, was only his third ever. Ung has since created a few more, including a pair of Jett’s kunai, Cypher’s head, and an homage to the “Revive Me, Jett!” spray.

Like other TikTok DIY-ers, Ung depends primarily on a tufting gun to create his rugs, which is basically what would happen if the Frenzy shot fabric instead of bullets.

His Radiant rug video explains how it all begins with an image of...

Earlier this year, we announced Aim Lab as the official FPS training partner for VCT Challengers North America. Today, we’re thrilled to reveal the next major milestone of this groundbreaking collaboration: The Aim Lab Combine in partnership with VCT Challengers North America. For the first time, VALORANT players will see how they stack up against the professionals with unrivaled clarity. Think you’re faster on the trigger than TenZ? Now’s your chance to find out.

To underscore our shared commitment to developing the North American VCT talent pipeline, Riot Games and Aim Lab have constructed a series of six tasks for players of all levels to refine their mechanics, improve their in-game skills and learn to out-aim the competition. Each custom-built scenario trains crucial VALORANT fundamentals, such as:

• Entry - Blend in-game knowledge and decisive action to properly enter a site
• Headshots - Keep yo...

After two sets of open qualifiers and two accompanying main events, it’s time to determine the two teams that will represent North America at Masters: Reykjavik.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch the 2021 VCT Stage 2 - Challengers NA - Playoffs.

Tournament Overview

VCT Stage 2 - Challengers NA - Playoffs is the last North American tournament for Stage 2 of the inaugural VALORANT Champions Tour: a year-long global circuit featuring three tiers of competition (Challengers, Masters, and Champions) across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

The eight teams competing in VCT Stage 2 - Challengers NA - Playoffs qualified through two weeks of Challengers NA events. Now, the two tournament finalists will advance to Masters: Reykjavik, the first international LAN in VALORANT Esports history.

VCT Stage 2 - Challengers NA - Playoffs will be a double-elimination bracket featuring best-of-three matches and a best-of-f...

The VALORANT map rotation gets another one, welcome to Breeze. A fresh Battlepass, the Forsaken skin bundle, and your last chance to upgrade your potential Episode 2 Rank Gun Buddy is here.

For those wondering about our usual new Agent, we’re modifying our routine this time to prioritize quality over speed. Agents take time, and we’re making sure we release the next one with the level of refinement you expect. Now go play Breeze!

NEW MAP: BREEZE (Apr. 27 Breeze-only queue, May. 12 Unrated & Competitive)

...

Hello, 

I will be out of the office starting (Breeze) until (Breeze). For urgent matters, you can contact (Someone Else). 

Best Regards, 

—Jeff

MAP UPDATES

...

Mohamed Amine Ouarid, 22, is the Moroccan Duelist who sits at #10 on the Episode 2 Act I VALORANT leaderboards as “JohnQT.”

Without the Closed Beta in his home region, JohnQt had to initially rely on streams and impressions to know if VALORANT would be his future main. The commitment would also mean transitioning from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where he had ...

Q

Can you explain the reasoning behind the regional slot distribution for Masters: Reykjavik?

A

One of our biggest goals for 2020 was to launch international events as quickly as possible. As planning was going on for the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational, we were presented with an opportunity to utilize that event’s infrastructure to execute an international 10-team VALORANT LAN earlier than anticipated. With this team limit, our first priority was to make sure each of our seven VALORANT regions was represented at our first global event.

Subsequently, we had to make some tough decisions with the remaining three slots. As we were trying to make these decisions, we looked at each region’s playerbase, viewership, esports infrastructure, and team participation within regional VCT tournaments; criteria that EMEA, North America, and Brazil all scored especially high on. Ultimately, we chose to grant a...

After the last two heavy patches (guess which one was fake), we’re coming at you lighter this time. That being said the Astra and Raze changes should carry some serious weight for the Spike plant/defuse window and predicting incoming attacks, respectively.

Viper is technically a bug fix not a balance, but this fix alters slightly the potential power of her recent Decay buff...

Q 

What is your approach when you see abilities not being used as intended? 

A

We've seen a lot of Agent abilities used in unintended ways by players, sometimes with awesome outcomes and sometimes in ways that we've needed to address. Sage's Barrier Orb is a fantastic example—we've seen countless creative boosts, sideways tube walls, and ability combos that we wouldn't have expected. On the flip side, we've seen floating walls creating one-ways, single wall segments hovering over the Split B bomb site, and more Omen teleport bug combos than I'd like to remember.

We walk a pretty constant line between the sandbox nature of abilities that keeps each game exciting, and trying to determine if newly discovered interactions are enriching or breaking the tactical game we've promised. VALORANT is definitely a game that we're building and exploring hand-and-hand with our community. We know you all a...

Here you can find the most up-to-date competitive policies that will serve as the cornerstones of VALORANT esports in North America:

• Rule Set for the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour Stage 2 - Challengers North America Season

With Masters 1 in the rearview, North America’s best VALORANT teams will set their sights on Reykjavik, Iceland, the first international LAN in VALORANT esports history. Only two teams from North America will qualify, a process that will take place over the next five weeks during the region’s VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Stage 2.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 2021 VCT Stage 2 — Challengers North America:

Stage Overview

The VALORANT Champions Tour is a year-long global circuit featuring three tiers of competition (Challengers, Masters, and Champions) across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The VCT consists of three stages, the first of which has been completed by each region. We are now entering VCT Stage 2, which will conclude during May’s international VCT Stage 2 — Masters tournament held at Laugardalshöll in Reykjavik, Iceland.

North American teams will begin their journey to VCT Masters 2 through Chall...