8 Essential Valorant Tips You Need In Ranked Play

Hello! I want to take a bit of your time today to prepare you for Valorant’s ranked mode.

I have prepared 9 essential tips that will prepare you for ranked mode and help you reach the division you always wanted.

The guide will be as simple as possible and understandable to everyone, let’s dig in!

1. Play your comfort pick agents

Playing a comfort pick is essential. A comfort pick is an agent that you have experience with, and have practiced it a lot in Unrated matches. Many players are one-trick-ponies (OTP) which is good and bad at the same time.

It’s good because you obviously have a lot of experience on that agent and you know your way around it, however, if that agent is picked, you are screwed. Therefore, this is not a good idea in my opinion.

I suggest you practice AT LEAST two agents and get comfortable with them, preferably 3 or 4. More than 4 is not needed and is reserved for professional players, a casual player should stick to a maximum of 4 and get to know them inside out.

In case your favorite agent or agents are picked, don’t snap out and rage at your team, instead, ask them nicely to allow you to play one of those because they are the comfort picks of yours and your team will have a higher chance of winning.

2. Do not insta lock

A follow up to tip number 1, do not insta lock in order to grab the agent that you want. It’s rude. However, rudeness is the least of your problems.

You might have locked someone else’s OTP or comfort pick, and therefore, reduced the chances of winning. If you’ve followed the first tip, you should have at least 2 agents at your disposal, preferably 3 or 4.

Apart from that, you are damaging your team’s flexibility, what if the agent you locked doesn’t fit the composition at all? Please do not insta lock, hover the agent you want to play and let the team know what you want to play and maybe your agent is the one needed, maybe not.

3. Start using voice chat

Voice chat is essential in Valorant’s ranked mode. Calling out positions, spots, plants, strategy is just too essential to ignore. Trust me, nobody cares about your voice, quality of mic, english skills or anything, people are playing ranked to win and that’s the only thing that matters.

When you do start talking, keep the information short and precise. Do not talk about your day, do not start talking in your native language because another player speaks it too, do not try to explain in great detail what you’re trying to say. Keep it short and precise.

4. Don’t change your strategy often

When playing, your team should have one basic strategy that works for you, if it’s a random group of people while solo playing, you can try a couple of strategies until you hit the one that works. When you hit the one that works, do not change it, especially in lower divisions.

You probably won’t be playing against professional players in most cases that will learn and adapt your strategy, even if they try to adapt, there’s great odds that your working strategy will still be good enough to break their adaptation.

If they somehow do adapt very well and your strategy does not work for a few rounds, it’s time to switch it up during the buy or switch phase and discuss with your team regarding a new strategy.

5. Warmup before games

Warmup is an essential part of ranked play. You don’t want to go into ranked without warming up and lose valuable ranks. There is an EXCELLENT practice range in Valorant, and if that doesn’t do it for you, just play an Unrated game to warm up.

All in all, do not go cold into games, take 5-10 min of warming up before ranked games.

6. Buy Valorant boosting

If you’re having a bad day and bad teams are chasing you, there’s a cure. Valorant boosting is a service where professional players can play with you, or play on your account to help you raise your division, win more placement matches and so on.

Definitely check it out and it might just suit you to get a periodical boost now and then and get back the division you deserve, or even go higher and test your skills in higher divisions.

7. Stop tilting

Tilting is a downward spiral that will ruin your Valorant ranking so hard you won’t even know what happened. If you’re having a bad day or bad teams, it’s natural to experience negative emotion, BUT, playing when being negative and tilted is a recipe for disaster.

Even when you get a good team after a bad streak, your tiltedness will cause you to actually ruin the chances of a win with the good team you just got. You just cannot play as good as you usually do and that’s it.

Take a break, take a walk, relax, come back with a fresh state of mind, do not bang your head against the wall when it’s just not working.

8. Be a nice person

This one may seem too obvious but I believe every player needs reminding of it now and then. Being negative during a match, insta locking, not respecting the economy, doing your own thing and generally not playing with the team is a recipe for a loss.

Be nice, work with your team and GLHF in your Valorant ranked matches.