Valorant Rank Distribution in Episodes 1, 2, and 3
The Valorant rank distribution and percentage of players by tier in Episodes 1, 2, and 3. Data on the entire player base in all regions.
All the Valorant ranked seasons
I had to split this analysis into multiple articles due to the excessive number of tables and graphs, which resulted in very long loading times.
Rank distribution - Episode 3
December 2021
There are no changes with the rank distribution data displayed in November.
November 2021
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 1.7% | Platinum 1 | 4.7% |
| Iron 2 | 2.6% | Platinum 2 | 3.2% |
| Iron 3 | 4.7% | Platinum 3 | 2.4% |
| Bronze 1 | 6.0% | Diamond 1 | 2.0% |
| Bronze 2 | 7.9% | Diamond 2 | 1.5% |
| Bronze 3 | 8.6% | Diamond 3 | 1.2% |
| Silver 1 | 10.5% | Immortal 1 | 1.2% |
| Silver 2 | 9.9% | Immortal 2 | 0.4% |
| Silver 3 | 9.7% | Immortal 3 | 0.2% |
| Gold 1 | 9.0% | Radiant | 0.04% |
| Gold 2 | 6.9% | ||
| Gold 3 | 5.6% |
Note: As requested by several readers, starting from this month, Radiant is rounded to 2 decimals in order to provide more accurate data.
Distribution:
Iron: 9%
Bronze: 22.5%
Silver: 30.1%
Gold: 21.5%
Platinum: 10.3%
Diamond: 4.7%
Immortal: 1.8%
Radiant: 0.04%
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 4.5% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Platinum 1 | 16.8 |
| Iron 2 | 98.2 | Platinum 2 | 12.1 |
| Iron 3 | 95.6 | Platinum 3 | 8.9 |
| Bronze 1 | 90.9 | Diamond 1 | 6.5 |
| Bronze 2 | 84.9 | Diamond 2 | 4.5 |
| Bronze 3 | 77 | Diamond 3 | 3.0 |
| Silver 1 | 68.4 | Immortal 1 | 1.8 |
| Silver 2 | 57.9 | Immortal 2 | 0.6 |
| Silver 3 | 48 | Immortal 3 | 0.2 |
| Gold 1 | 38.3 | Radiant | 0.04 |
| Gold 2 | 29.3 | ||
| Gold 3 | 22.4 |
Ranked matchmaking changes summary
Patch 3.10
In an effort to reduce smurfing, we’re removing all ranked restrictions from 5-stack parties in Competitive Queue.
Our data has shown that the most common reason that players smurf, is because they want to play with their friends outside the bounds of our current ranked restrictions. Removing these boundaries for 5-stacks specifically, means that you can play with your friends regardless of the restrictions that exist for smaller party sizes in Competitive Queue.
In implementing this change, we’re also adjusting the ruleset for these types of groups in order to mitigate against competitive integrity issues that wide skill disparity groups could cause.
Alongside the 5-stack changes, we are also removing 4-stacks from the Competitive queue. These types of groups tend to leave the remaining solo queue player with a relatively poor play experience, and we believe that removing this option will result in a significant reduction of overall toxicity reports.
— Matthew Le, Valorant Competitive Producer
If everyone in your group is Diamond 2 and below:
You can expect increased queue times as we will only matchmake your team against another 5 stack of similar average MMR.
Rank Rating gains and losses will be reduced when playing in a 5 stack outside of our current rank restrictions rules. The amount that your RR is adjusted depends on the rank disparity within the group.
Let’s walk through a couple example cases:
You party with 4 of your friends. The lowest team member is Silver 1 and the highest is Platinum 1. Your team will be given a 50% RR reduction because the highest and lowest members are 1 rank outside the standard group restrictions.
In the same group, you have 1 team member leave, and bring in your other friend who is Bronze 1. Now the skill disparity has increased to 4 ranks outside of the standard grouping restrictions. Your team will be given a 75% RR reduction as a result.
If one or more members of your group are Diamond 3 and above:
Your expected queue times may vary greatly, and could increase dramatically as you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against.
At minimum, a 50% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks, and this amount can increase to 90% as the disparity in skill increases.
Let’s walk through a couple examples of these:
4 of your party members are Immortal and one of your friends is Diamond 2. The whole squad has a 75% reduction to RR gains and losses due to rank disparity.
Your team grinds until your Diamond 2 friend reaches Diamond 3. The whole squad will now have a 50% reduction to RR gains and losses; A penalty that is applied to any 5-stack in Diamond 3 or above.
If one or more members of your group are Radiant:
Similar to Diamond 3-plus, you will wait indefinitely for another 5-stack of similar MMR to play against, potentially increasing your queue times drastically.
At minimum, a 75% RR reduction will be applied to all 5-stacks including a member from these ranks. Playing with any player below Radiant automatically reduces your potential RR by 90%.
Patch 3.5
Immortal 1/2/3 rank tiers are back!
The Leaderboard will update to distinguish between those of you in each Immortal tier.
Updated Ranked grouping restrictions to accommodate return of Immortal 1/2/3:
Diamond 1 → Immortal 1
Diamond 2 → Immortal 2
Diamond 3 → Immortal 3
Adjusted Competitive ranked distribution.
Patch 3.0
Matchmaking accuracy improved across all ranks.
While winning games is still the most important factor, individual performance will also be accounted for at Immortal+.
Close games have a smaller effect on rating.
Adjusted the Rank Rating curves, so climbing or falling will feel less volatile.
Updated rank distribution.
Placement games raised to Diamond 1.
October 2021
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 1.7% | Platinum 1 | 3.8% |
| Iron 2 | 2.8% | Platinum 2 | 2.5% |
| Iron 3 | 5.7% | Platinum 3 | 1.9% |
| Bronze 1 | 6.8% | Diamond 1 | 1.5% |
| Bronze 2 | 9.1% | Diamond 2 | 1.1% |
| Bronze 3 | 9.5% | Diamond 3 | 0.8% |
| Silver 1 | 11.6% | Immortal 1 | 0.7% |
| Silver 2 | 10.4% | Immortal 2 | 0.3% |
| Silver 3 | 9.8% | Immortal 3 | 0.2% |
| Gold 1 | 8.6% | Radiant | 0.1% |
| Gold 2 | 6.2% | ||
| Gold 3 | 4.8% |
Distribution:
Iron: 10.2%
Bronze: 25.4%
Silver: 31.8%
Gold: 19.6%
Platinum: 8.2%
Diamond: 3.4%
Immortal: 1.2%
Radiant: 0.1%
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 3.2% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Platinum 1 | 12.9 |
| Iron 2 | 98.2 | Platinum 2 | 9.1 |
| Iron 3 | 95.4 | Platinum 3 | 6.6 |
| Bronze 1 | 89.7 | Diamond 1 | 4.7 |
| Bronze 2 | 82.9 | Diamond 2 | 3.2 |
| Bronze 3 | 73.8 | Diamond 3 | 2.1 |
| Silver 1 | 64.3 | Immortal 1 | 1.3 |
| Silver 2 | 52.7 | Immortal 2 | 0.6 |
| Silver 3 | 42.3 | Immortal 3 | 0.3 |
| Gold 1 | 32.5 | Radiant | 0.1 |
| Gold 2 | 23.9 | ||
| Gold 3 | 17.7 |
As promised in the “Ask Valorant” dev blog published on August 27th, Riot finally improved the rank distribution in Valorant.
According to the data, the average player is a Silver 2, while Gold 1 is already way above the average hitting the 70+ percentile.
Only 13% of the players are placed between Platinum 1 to Radiant, while Diamond starts from above the 95 percentile.
High ranked players tend to complain about the state of the matchmaking, but with only 1.3% of the player base at Immortal, and even split in multiple servers, matching together individuals with similar skills isn’t a simple task.
Smurfing
Several players are struggling in Gold and Platinum lobbies, and it looks like smurfs are one of the principal causes behind this situation. Fortunately, the developers are already working on smurfing countermeasures.
Smurfing is a huge topic right now and we are still working on our smurfing investigation, which is nearing completion! We are currently talking about solutions and how to tackle this, and we understand realistically nothing will “solve” smurfing. It will be a constant game of cat and mouse and we will have to adjust our systems all the time to try and reduce the reasons/ability to smurf.
— EvrMoar - Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant
August 2021
Note: Radiant is top 500, so it is not shown in this graph.
Distribution:
Iron: 14.4%
Bronze: 16.5%
Silver: 38.7%
Gold: 21.9%
Platinum: 5.5%
Diamond: 1.5%
Immortal: 0.5%
Radiant: 0.1%
Current and target rank distributions
In the “Ask Valorant” dev blog published on August 27th, Jon Walker, Competitive Designer for Valorant, shared the rank distribution in Episode 3, Act 1.
The figures are pretty close to the ones we posted in the previous months, highlighting a disproportionate amount of players at Silver and lower ranks.
Jon explained that they made several changes in Episode 3 in order to refine the matchmaker and improve match fairness, which ended up affecting everyone’s MMR.
We can comfortably say our lower ranks have too many people in them, and our higher ranks not enough.
Our target now is to adjust the distribution so as to reduce the amount of players in Silver, and move everyone up to the ranks they belong.”
Below, you can find the optimal rank distribution the Valorant team wants to achieve in Act 2.
Beware: while this is the goal for the ranked distribution, the final result in Act 2 might be different.
July 2021
The rank distribution slightly changed, but the average rank in both Episode 2 and 3 is still Silver 1.
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 3.7% | Gold 2 | 4.1% |
| Iron 2 | 3.2% | Gold 3 | 3.3% |
| Iron 3 | 7% | Platinum 1 | 2.6% |
| Bronze 1 | 6.2% | Platinum 2 | 1.9% |
| Bronze 2 | 10.3% | Platinum 3 | 1.4% |
| Bronze 3 | 11.5% | Diamond 1 | 1.3% |
| Silver 1 | 15.3% | Diamond 2 | 1.1% |
| Silver 2 | 11.6% | Diamond 3 | 0.7% |
| Silver 3 | 8.5% | Immortal | 0.6% |
| Gold 1 | 5.7% | Radiant | 0.1% |
Distribution:
Iron: 13.9%
Bronze: 28%
Silver: 35.3%
Gold: 13%
Platinum: 5.9%
Diamond: 3.2%
Immortal: 0.6%
Radiant: 0.1%
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 2.4% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 2 | 17.1 |
| Iron 2 | 96.3 | Gold 3 | 13 |
| Iron 3 | 93.1 | Platinum 1 | 9.7 |
| Bronze 1 | 86.1 | Platinum 2 | 7.1 |
| Bronze 2 | 79.9 | Platinum 3 | 5.1 |
| Bronze 3 | 69.5 | Diamond 1 | 3.8 |
| Silver 1 | 58 | Diamond 2 | 2.4 |
| Silver 2 | 42.8 | Diamond 3 | 1.3 |
| Silver 3 | 31.2 | Immortal | 0.6 |
| Gold 1 | 22.7 | Radiant | 0.1 |
I gathered the matchmaking explanations shared by EvrMoar, Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant. I quoted him below.
Valorant vs League of Legends rank distribution
We don’t balance our ranked distribution based on what League is doing or their system. While I do talk with their designers, the Valorant team believes in the decisions from my team to do what we believe is the correct distribution for Valorant.
The Valorant rank distribution is balanced based on population
Personally, I’m a bigger fan of balancing based on population than on a static MMR number that’s the same for all ranks. You could actually get pretty close to the population percentage you want for each rank if you did a static MMR system and worked out the math. But again, I’m a bigger fan of balancing based on population percentage.
The reason I like balancing on population percentage is that I think it’s easier to digest than MMR, especially if your MMR system is not forward-facing (like ours).
How are players talking about our system? When I talk about my rank I often like to say “I’m in the top x% of players when I’m Diamond”, and I know others who do the same.
Silver is the center point
Now, why is Silver the center point? Silver “feels” like the center point of most ranked systems. When I’ve played games in the past, Gold has always felt like the first step into the higher-skilled player pool, and I want to keep that feeling.
Silver should feel like “I made it to the middle of the pack” and going above that should feel like climbing above that group. You could also argue that this thought of Silver being “Middle of the pack” can be seen in society or other games.
I combine what I believe is best for the community, what players’ expectations are from playing other games; and we looked at League because it’s another Riot game players may be familiar with. Obviously, Gold in League is a very important rank because that’s where you get your ranked skin, so it just reinforced my belief that I wanted Gold to start to feel “Above the pack”.
I also like the higher ranks having a smaller population percentage because it feels very prestigious to get those ranks. Ranked is about improving your skill and being rewarded for doing so. I haven’t been a huge fan of systems where the higher ranks become a hangout spot for a large group of players.
Rank distribution - Episode 2
June 2021
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 3% | Gold 2 | 5.1% |
| Iron 2 | 5.8% | Gold 3 | 3.9% |
| Iron 3 | 9% | Platinum 1 | 2.9% |
| Bronze 1 | 9.1% | Platinum 2 | 2% |
| Bronze 2 | 10.2% | Platinum 3 | 1.5% |
| Bronze 3 | 9.9% | Diamond 1 | 1.2% |
| Silver 1 | 9.7% | Diamond 2 | 0.9% |
| Silver 2 | 8.8% | Diamond 3 | 0.8% |
| Silver 3 | 8.1% | Immortal | 1.2% |
| Gold 1 | 6.8% | Radiant | 0.1% |
Distribution:
Iron: 17.8%
Bronze: 29.2%
Silver: 26.6%
Gold: 15.8%
Platinum: 6.5%
Diamond: 2.9%
Immortal: 1.2%
Radiant: 0.1%
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 3% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 2 | 19.7 |
| Iron 2 | 97 | Gold 3 | 14.5 |
| Iron 3 | 91.2 | Platinum 1 | 10.6 |
| Bronze 1 | 82.2 | Platinum 2 | 7.6 |
| Bronze 2 | 73.1 | Platinum 3 | 5.6 |
| Bronze 3 | 62.9 | Diamond 1 | 4.1 |
| Silver 1 | 53 | Diamond 2 | 3 |
| Silver 2 | 43.3 | Diamond 3 | 2.1 |
| Silver 3 | 34.5 | Immortal | 1.3 |
| Gold 1 | 26.4 | Radiant | 0.1 |
MMR grind and win rate meaning
Recently, EvrMoar stated that we might gain rank very slowly even if our win rate is positive because we earn more or less RR based on the opponents we are facing.
Your gains/losses are based on your actual ladder standing.
It’s not about how many hours or games you play; it’s about beating people higher on the ladder and taking their spot. The system feels grindy because we won’t just let you out grind players on the leaderboard without actually earning it.
Win rate is a decent example to determine how well you’re doing, but let’s say you are only winning when paired against people below you on the ladder and lose when put against those above you. If 56% of the time you are getting in matches with players below you, you should be winning. However, 44% of the time you lose because they are above you.
So while win rate, again, is a good indicator of how well you are doing, it doesn’t show how well you are doing compared to those above you.
— EvrMoar - Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant
May 2021
The rank distribution is still mostly the same displayed in March, so I have not created new graphs and tables yet.
Iron decreased by 2%.
Bronze to Immortal increased by 0.1% to 0.5%, depending on the rank considered.
The only exception is Diamond, which lost 0.1%.
Radiant is unchanged.
March 2021
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 3.2% | Gold 2 | 5.6% |
| Iron 2 | 5.5% | Gold 3 | 4.5% |
| Iron 3 | 7.9% | Platinum 1 | 3.3% |
| Bronze 1 | 8.4% | Platinum 2 | 2.4% |
| Bronze 2 | 9.5% | Platinum 3 | 1.8% |
| Bronze 3 | 9.4% | Diamond 1 | 1.3% |
| Silver 1 | 9.6% | Diamond 2 | 1% |
| Silver 2 | 9.1% | Diamond 3 | 0.9% |
| Silver 3 | 8.6% | Immortal | 1.1% |
| Gold 1 | 7% | Radiant | 0.1% |
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 3% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 2 | 21.9 |
| Iron 2 | 96.8 | Gold 3 | 16.3 |
| Iron 3 | 91.3 | Platinum 1 | 11.8 |
| Bronze 1 | 83.4 | Platinum 2 | 8.5 |
| Bronze 2 | 75 | Platinum 3 | 6.1 |
| Bronze 3 | 65.5 | Diamond 1 | 4.3 |
| Silver 1 | 56.1 | Diamond 2 | 3 |
| Silver 2 | 46.5 | Diamond 3 | 2 |
| Silver 3 | 37.4 | Immortal | 1.2 |
| Gold 1 | 28.9 | Radiant | 0.1 |
Distribution:
Iron: 16.6%
Bronze: 27.3%
Silver: 27.2%
Gold: 17.1%
Platinum: 7.4%
Diamond: 3.7%
Immortal: 1.1%
Radiant: 0.1%
How to climb the ladder and reach your true rank
Also this month, I have gathered the matchmaking explanations shared by EvrMoar, Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant:
“All ranking systems require you to play lots of games, to figure out where you belong. There is no system that can perfectly “guess” where you belong after 5-10 matches. The ELO system requires thousands of games to find your true rank.
Ranked is a ladder: if you are constantly winning against opponents at/above your current MMR you will climb. Winning is the most important part about climbing. At lower ranks, performance is part of your rank, however, especially at higher ranks, winning is how you will climb.
At some point you will get to the MMR/Rank you belong, because you will no longer be consistently winning against opponents at/above your Rank. When you are at your MMR you are most likely hitting a 50%-ish win rate. Because of how Ranked Rating works, there is a chance that you can win streak up into a rank above your MMR, even though you still are only at a 50% win rate at your current MMR.
Summarizing, until you actually get above a 50% win rate at your MMR, or start beating higher MMR opponents constantly (when matched against them) you will struggle to climb.
Sometimes, you’ll be pushed down because you happened to win streak and are being protected by demotion protection. If you do start winning constantly, beating opponents more than you lose to them, you will increase your MMR and flip your Ranked Rating gains.
That being said, it doesn’t feel good. This is something lots ranked games suffer from, they just hide it or show it to you differently (the arrow system did this, you just didn’t see it). We are looking into ways to make this feel better, or improve the perception of being at the rank you are probably currently playing at.”
February 2021
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 2.4% | Gold 2 | 5% |
| Iron 2 | 4.7% | Gold 3 | 3.7% |
| Iron 3 | 8.1% | Platinum 1 | 2.8% |
| Bronze 1 | 8.3% | Platinum 2 | 2.2% |
| Bronze 2 | 10.3% | Platinum 3 | 2.1% |
| Bronze 3 | 10.4% | Diamond 1 | 1.5% |
| Silver 1 | 11.3% | Diamond 2 | 1.3% |
| Silver 2 | 9.7% | Diamond 3 | 1% |
| Silver 3 | 8.4% | Immortal | 0.4% |
| Gold 1 | 6.6% | Radiant | 0.1% |
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 2.8% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 2 | 19.9 |
| Iron 2 | 97.6 | Gold 3 | 14.9 |
| Iron 3 | 92.9 | Platinum 1 | 11.2 |
| Bronze 1 | 84.7 | Platinum 2 | 8.4 |
| Bronze 2 | 76.4 | Platinum 3 | 6.3 |
| Bronze 3 | 66.2 | Diamond 1 | 4.2 |
| Silver 1 | 55.8 | Diamond 2 | 2.8 |
| Silver 2 | 44.5 | Diamond 3 | 1.4 |
| Silver 3 | 34.8 | Immortal | 0.5 |
| Gold 1 | 26.4 | Radiant | 0.1 |
Distribution:
Iron: 15.3%
Bronze: 28.9%
Silver: 29.3%
Gold: 15.2%
Platinum: 7%
Diamond: 3.7%
Immortal: 0.4%
Radiant: 0.4%
Rank distribution goal
“My goal for distribution was to have the center point for the average user be mid/high silver. So if you were to drive a stake in the ground, that would be the center of the player base. I think we are doing pretty well this act.”
Patch 2.02: Changed Diamond 3 to a premade size capped at 2 players
“We put solo/duo on high ranks because of having a leaderboard and match queue time. At the highest level 5 stacks can be a huge problem, because they could manipulate the leaderboard and it’s very hard to find a 5 stack that could play against Cloud9 or G2 for example. There just aren’t enough players at that skill level queuing up.
Also, because we have more players at lower ranks, we can match them against each other and make fair matches easier. Our system is actually very good at matching 5 stacks against 5 stacks, 4 on 4, 3 on 3, etc. It gets easier the more players we have, and of course we have more players at lower ranks. It’s very rare to not have a 5 stack play against another 5 stack.”
— EvrMoar - Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant
Recent matchmaking updates
Patch 2.01
Reduced the queue time for high-MMR players, while maintaining match quality/fairness.
Patch 2.02
MMR to Rank Convergence increased.
Convergence is the multiplier that gives you more, or less, Rank Rating (RR) if your MMR is not equal to your rank. Convergence exists to push your rank to match your MMR - but we believe it wasn’t pushing you fast enough.
Diamond 3 is now Solo/Duo.
This change, along with the convergence changes, reduces the total number of games that 5-stacks can play together before being forced to Solo/Duo.
Performance Bonus for Iron to Diamond.
Right now the matchmaker has an idea of how well you should perform whenever it puts you in a match. When you go above that expectation (above your average), extra RR is your reward.
Patch 2.03
AFK-ing in Competitive games for a prolonged period (currently defined as 6 or more rounds) will now result in a penalty of 8 rank rating points.
Act Rank Badges will now be based on your highest rank win, instead of your ninth best win.
Episode 2 Act I rank changes summary
How to gain rank rating
You gain RR on a win and lose RR on a loss.
On a win, you will gain between 10 to 50 RR.
Minimum 5 RR gain for Diamond+.
On a loss, you will lose between 0 and 30 RR.
Maximum 50 RR loss for Diamond+.
On a draw, you will gain a max of 20 RR, based on your performance (only from iron through Diamond).
Demotion protection: You must lose at 0 RR to demote.
If you demote, you will not go below 80 RR at that rank.
Promotion boost where you start at minimum 10 RR on a win.
At lower ranks, exceptional performance can help you earn more RR.
Immortal and Radiant
Immortal 1, 2, and 3 now all fall under “Immortal”.
Immortal players will be equal to about 1% of rank players per region.
Radiant is a tier given only to the top 500 players in each region.
Other changes
Five placement games for each Act.
The highest rank you can earn with placements is now Platinum III.
Reduced the number of Iron players, and increased the percentage of players in Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
Rank distribution - Episode 1
Note: On February 17th, EvrMoar, Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant, affirmed that the data displayed on Esports Tales is quite reliable.
January 2021
Note: January 2021 data gathered just before the start of Episode 2.
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 8.8% | Gold 1 | 6.5% | Immortal 1 | 0.8% |
| Iron 2 | 5.8% | Gold 2 | 5.6% | Immortal 2 | 0.6% |
| Iron 3 | 7.4% | Gold 3 | 4.7% | Immortal 3 | 0.6% |
| Bronze 1 | 7.4% | Platinum 1 | 3.8% | Radiant | 0.4% |
| Bronze 2 | 8% | Platinum 2 | 3% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 7.7% | Platinum 3 | 2.3% | ||
| Silver 1 | 7.8% | Diamond 1 | 1.7% | ||
| Silver 2 | 7.5% | Diamond 2 | 1.3% | ||
| Silver 3 | 7% | Diamond 3 | 1.1% |
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 4.8% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 1 | 32.5 | Immortal 1 | 2.4 |
| Iron 2 | 91.2 | Gold 2 | 26 | Immortal 2 | 1.6 |
| Iron 3 | 85.5 | Gold 3 | 20.3 | Immortal 3 | 1.1 |
| Bronze 1 | 78.1 | Platinum 1 | 15.6 | Radiant | 0.4 |
| Bronze 2 | 70.7 | Platinum 2 | 11.8 | ||
| Bronze 3 | 62.7 | Platinum 3 | 8.8 | ||
| Silver 1 | 54.9 | Diamond 1 | 6.5 | ||
| Silver 2 | 47.1 | Diamond 2 | 4.8 | ||
| Silver 3 | 39.6 | Diamond 3 | 3.5 |
Distribution:
Iron: 21.9%
Bronze: 23.1%
Silver: 22.4%
Gold: 16.9%
Platinum: 9.1%
Diamond: 4.1%
Immortal: 2%
Radiant: 0.4%
Rank distribution and MMR role
EvrMoar, Senior Competitive Designer for Valorant, talked about the rank distribution and the impact of MMR. I have summarized his words below as they explain why now there are fewer players ranked at Iron 1.
“MMR stands for Match Making Rating. This is a number, assigned to you, that you can’t see. We use this number to determine your skill and figure out how to match you in fair matches against other players.
When you think of your “rank”, it is technically a range on a giant MMR system. For example: a player will have an MMR number tied to them, wherever this number falls is where they are in rank.
If silver was between 101-200, then any player with an MMR between those two numbers would be ranked silver.
If a player that was currently silver won enough matches, pushing their MMR number past 200 they would promote into gold.
If we thought there were too many players in silver, but not enough in gold, we could adjust those rank ranges, effectively adjusting the MMR required to be that rank. We could lower the gold MMR required, and this would shrink the amount of players in silver while also putting more people into gold.
In my example, we could just make silver 101-150 and gold 151-300. Now that we lowered the required MMR to get into gold by 50, any silver player with MMR between 151-200 will be promoted into gold.
Before:
101-200 Silver
201-300 Gold
After:
101-150 Silver
151-300 Gold
It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s a pretty safe way to think about it. So, we adjusted where we think the % of the player base belongs, and our changes were targeted at lower ranks.
Just a heads up, this does not mean you will log in and if you were iron 1 you will get bumped up to iron 2/3. You will still have to play matches, win, and get moved along the new distribution. After our change, if you should be a higher rank, you will be getting slightly more rank from winning and lose less after a defeat.
I also wanted to add: Yes, this may move more players in the low ranks up, but it won’t affect MMR or match fairness. We are still using your same MMR to create matches. This is purely a distribution change.”
December 2020
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 14% | Gold 1 | 6.1% | Immortal 1 | 0.6% |
| Iron 2 | 7.3% | Gold 2 | 5.3% | Immortal 2 | 0.4% |
| Iron 3 | 7.5% | Gold 3 | 4.5% | Immortal 3 | 0.5% |
| Bronze 1 | 6.8% | Platinum 1 | 3.7% | Radiant | 0.3% |
| Bronze 2 | 7.2% | Platinum 2 | 2.9% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 7.4% | Platinum 3 | 2.2% | ||
| Silver 1 | 7.3% | Diamond 1 | 1.8% | ||
| Silver 2 | 6.2% | Diamond 2 | 1.3% | ||
| Silver 3 | 5.8% | Diamond 3 | 0.9% |
Top percentage of players
Below, a cumulative chart indicating the top percentage of players. For example, as a Diamond 2 you are in the top 4% of the player base.
| Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% | Rank | Top% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 100 | Gold 1 | 30.5 | Immortal 1 | 1.8 |
| Iron 2 | 86.0 | Gold 2 | 24.4 | Immortal 2 | 1.2 |
| Iron 3 | 78.7 | Gold 3 | 19.1 | Immortal 3 | 0.8 |
| Bronze 1 | 71.2 | Platinum 1 | 14.6 | Radiant | 0.3 |
| Bronze 2 | 64.4 | Platinum 2 | 10.9 | ||
| Bronze 3 | 57.2 | Platinum 3 | 8.0 | ||
| Silver 1 | 49.8 | Diamond 1 | 5.8 | ||
| Silver 2 | 42.5 | Diamond 2 | 4.0 | ||
| Silver 3 | 36.3 | Diamond 3 | 2.7 |
Distribution:
Iron: 28.9%
Bronze: 21.3%
Silver: 19.3%
Gold: 15.8%
Platinum: 8.8%
Diamond: 4.1%
Immortal: 1.5%
Radiant: 0.3%
A summary of the data
There are substantial changes to the rank distribution, and they are caused by two main factors:
In the past months, we could not use the Riot API, but we gathered data from third-party websites that have access only to the profiles of players using their services, so the tiers were mostly biased towards the higher ranks.
Act III started with patch 1.10, so all the players had to run again their placement matches in October.
While using the API surely had an impact on the distribution, I believe it might have shifted in Act III as many players reported dropping to a lower rank than in the past.
There are many players currently in Iron and Bronze that were Silver or Gold in the previous act.
People shared even extraordinary cases, such as Bronze 3 matches filled with former high Gold and low Platinum players.
Currently, 70% of the player base is placed at Silver and below, and Iron is the biggest bracket containing about 30% of the game population. I don’t know exactly why there are so many players at Iron 1, but probably Riot uses it as a sort of container for the least skilled players in the game.
Beside the oddity at lower ranks, I think the overall distribution improved: there is a similar amount of players at Silver and Gold, and they decrease smoothly as the rank increases. Only 1.5% of the player base reached Immortal, while you must become one of the top 4% players in the game to achieve Diamond.
Valorant Act III ranked play changes
In this video, Design Director Joe Ziegler and Systems Design Lead David Cole talk about all the changes for ranked play introduced in Valorant Act III.
Design Director Joe Ziegler summarized the goals the dev team is trying to achieve with the ranked system:
Climbing the ranks is at the heart of the competitive experience of Valorant. However, as we’ve seen from your feedback over the past two Acts, this system is still in its early stages, and we know we need to do a better job improving understanding of the system, rank progress, and high rank play.
We want your ranked matches to always feel like you have a fair chance of winning, but we’ve struggled to do that at the top ranks where it’s harder to put solo players in fair matches.
We’ve also heard from others that there’s a desire for even more organized teamplay, but just not in the same queue.
I want to say that we hear you on all of these things, and while some may take time to implement, please keep the feedback coming!
Systems Design Lead David Cole explained in detail all the changes introduced with Act 3, the reasons behind them, and what to expect from Episode 2:
“When we were first setting up ranked for launch, one big goal we had was to embrace social play; to let players from wider skill disparities play together, and to focus much of our ranked systems on personal progression.
However, as we’ve heard from your feedback, ranked is about competition, like chasing a higher rank relative to your peers, or knowing that the rank you’ve achieved is worth something because everyone’s climbing under the same conditions.
For us, while the former values of social play are important, they should never come at the cost of your ranked accomplishments. So, we’re going to take a step back and simplify our goals with ranked, which you’ll see over the course of Act 3, and then next year in Episode 2 and beyond.
Tighter rank queue
We want to bring back more competitive integrity to the queue, and get you focused on what matters most: winning.
A team with a wide delta in Rank definitely makes this harder. As such, we’re going to tighten restrictions on Rank disparities for the competitive queue, reducing them from a 6 to a 3-rank difference.
For example, the lowest rank a Diamond 3 can queue with is a Platinum 3, and the highest they can queue with is an Immortal 3.
Additionally, Immortal-plus rank movement will be purely impacted by wins or losses, and how decisive the match outcome was.
We’re going to start here, learn how this impacts gameplay, and hopefully apply it to all other tiers by Episode 2.
Preferred server
Along with reducing skill disparity in Competitive, we are also adding the ability to select your preferred server. We can’t fully guarantee you’ll always get the server you want, due to Matchmaking reasons. But this feature will notably increase the chance to get your preferred game server.
Future changes
Next on our priority list is improving the experience of high rank players and the ranked climb. Hopefully, some of the changes in Act 3 will address common pain points, but there are extra features already in the works for Episode 2.
A few of these include creating a public, region-based leaderboard, and a potential restriction on queue sizes at Immortal-plus to solo/duo. These ranks are where the Matchmaking pool is very small and therefore, harder to reliably make fair matches.
Currently, we’re on track to deliver these changes early next year with the launch of Episode 2.”
Rank distribution prior the API
Source of the data
Currently, a perfect rank distribution is not attainable because Riot doesn’t provide an API to acquire info on the player base in Valorant, however, there are several websites that gather and share data.
Every website can only access the data of the users utilizing their services, such as match history, best maps and weapons, general performance, and all sort of detailed statistics. By using any of these utilities, we let them scrap info from our profiles, which can be employed also to split the player base across all ranks.
I investigated all the websites available so far, and in the end I concluded that Blitz is the most reliable one due to the huge amount of users, so we will use their data for this distribution. Credit to Reddit users enigmapulse and medievalmystery who gathered the data in July and August respectively.
I want to point out that this distribution doesn’t include the whole player base, and it is certainly biased towards higher ranks. Nevertheless, this is the best data at our disposal, and honestly the player distribution is quite similar to the one in League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics.
August 2020
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 2.80% | Gold 1 | 8.98% | Immortal 1 | 1.23% |
| Iron 2 | 1.84% | Gold 2 | 9.14% | Immortal 2 | 0.66% |
| Iron 3 | 2.58% | Gold 3 | 8.69% | Immortal 3 | 0.62% |
| Bronze 1 | 3.67% | Platinum 1 | 7.74% | Radiant | 0.16% |
| Bronze 2 | 4.89% | Platinum 2 | 6.39% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 5.23% | Platinum 3 | 5.20% | ||
| Silver 1 | 6.09% | Diamond 1 | 4.18% | ||
| Silver 2 | 7.04% | Diamond 2 | 2.96% | ||
| Silver 3 | 7.63% | Diamond 3 | 2.17% |
Percentile of players
Below, a cumulative chart showing the percentile of players. For example, as a Platinum 2 you are in the top 18% of the player base.
| Rank | Percentile | Rank | Percentile | Rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 2.80% | Gold 1 | 50.80% | Immortal 1 | 98.54% |
| Iron 2 | 4.65% | Gold 2 | 59.95% | Immortal 2 | 99.21% |
| Iron 3 | 7.23% | Gold 3 | 68.64% | Immortal 3 | 99.83% |
| Bronze 1 | 10.91% | Platinum 1 | 76.38% | Radiant | 100% |
| Bronze 2 | 15.80% | Platinum 2 | 82.78% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 21.04% | Platinum 3 | 87.99% | ||
| Silver 1 | 27.14% | Diamond 1 | 92.17% | ||
| Silver 2 | 34.19% | Diamond 2 | 95.13% | ||
| Silver 3 | 41.82% | Diamond 3 | 97.31% |
Distribution
Iron: 7.22%
Bronze: 13.79%
Silver: 20.76%
Gold: 26.81%
Platinum: 19.33%
Diamond: 9.31%
Immortal: 2.51%
Radiant: 0.16%
This distribution is based on the data from 3 million matches.
A summary of the data
According to the data at our disposal, the average player is ranked at Gold 1-2.
This is a reasonable placement, however, when Riot will share the official numbers, I believe that the average will shift to high Silver. I suspect that the real percentage of players at Gold and Platinum is slightly lower.
Note that in some games, such as Overwatch, Gold and Platinum contain the largest amount of players, so the data we have on Valorant might be quite reliable. Nonetheless, having so many players packed at “high” ranks also causes an immense skill disparity among them, which can upset the player base and lead to worse games.
Radiant is reserved for the elite, but I think there are a bit too many players at Diamond and Immortal.
Finally, don’t forget that Valorant has been released recently, the rank distribution will require months to stabilize, and the developers are constantly improving this game mode.
Matchmaking changes
Patch 1.05
Competitive matchmaking now will have a higher chance to match solo and solo/duo players against similarly sized premade groups at the cost of queue times being slightly longer.
“Hey everyone, on the design side we are currently analyzing the ranking system top to bottom. We’re looking into changes that will improve many aspects of competitive, but have not committed to any solutions yet. Thanks to everyone for their feedback!”
Valorant rank system
I have gathered some interesting topics on the rank system that have been shared by the developers during the past months, such as solo/duo queue, ban system, and how to earn rank.
Solo/Duo queue
The Valorant matchmaking system allows premades of any size, which caused discomfort in the community as solo players claim (with good reason) to suffer a disadvantage when playing against a 5-man stack.
Joe Ziegler, Valorant Game Director, commented on the chance to add a solo/duo queue.
We want to create a system that is fair for both teams and individuals to play in while avoiding the downsides of creating two queues (longer queue times, asymmetrical queue health). We are continuing to working towards that.
We are not closing any future options permanently. If we need other solutions, we will embrace that with your feedback and help.
Ian Fielding, Product Manager for Valorant, also explained that the matchmaking tries to place premades with a similar team size against each other.
It’s important to us that competitive matchmaking in VALORANT is focused on teamplay, because we believe that playing as a team is a major component in your overall mastery of the game.
Having a solo queue can easily lead to that becoming the definitive test of someone’s skills and the primary way to play competitively. We’ve opted instead to allow players to play at any team size they prefer.
If you are playing solo or with smaller group sizes, we’ve worked to make it so our matchmaking will favor placing players against similar premade team sizes.
All Valorant ranks - Riot
After a trial run during the closed beta, Valorant officially launched the competitive matchmaking in patch 10.2. The rank system is composed of 8 ranks, split in 3 tiers each, except the top rank, Radiant.
Ban system for agents and maps
Every other week, the game developers answer to questions of the community. In the second episode of “Ask Valorant”, Senior Game Designer Trevor Romleski shared their opinions on the ban system.
We’ve considered a draft phase for agents, but the current thinking is that we would not have bans.
First, we expect teams to have set plays and strategies that will require very specific agents. Banning an agent would invalidate that entire strategy, and we don’t want to discourage practice.
Second, bans often remove a players’ star agent and we want players who are exceptional at certain agents to be able to play them and show off their skills with them.
Finally, because Valorant doesn’t have hard counters in the form of agents (this isn’t our design philosophy), we think the game state is healthier if we’re held accountable to ensuring no agent or agent-facilitated strategy becomes so oppressive or unsolvable that a ban is the only choice.
How to earn rank
Winning games is the most important factor in gaining rank.
Achieving a victory with a significant advantage (13-3) provides more rank points than winning a close game (13-11).
Your personal performance has a slight impact on your rank evaluation, particularly during the placement matches, but over time it will decrease its importance.
Players might gain rank off a draw, but they will never lose rank.
At Radiant, your rank is influenced only by winning games, and by how decisively you win or lose them.
Your rank is hidden if you don’t play competitive games for over 14 days, but there is no rank decay.
July 2020
| Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage | Rank | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 0.51% | Gold 1 | 11.29% | Immortal 1 | 0.44% |
| Iron 2 | 0.74% | Gold 2 | 11.48% | Immortal 2 | 0.17% |
| Iron 3 | 1.36% | Gold 3 | 10.80% | Immortal 3 | 0.07% |
| Bronze 1 | 2.37% | Platinum 1 | 9.13% | Radiant | 0.00% |
| Bronze 2 | 3.75% | Platinum 2 | 7.22% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 4.92% | Platinum 3 | 5.33% | ||
| Silver 1 | 6.54% | Diamond 1 | 3.21% | ||
| Silver 2 | 8.16% | Diamond 2 | 1.87% | ||
| Silver 3 | 9.63% | Diamond 3 | 1.02% |
Note: there are players placed at Radiant, but their percentage is lower than 0.00%.
Percentile of players
| Rank | Percentile | Rank | Percentile | Rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron 1 | 0.51% | Gold 1 | 49.27% | Immortal 1 | 99.77% |
| Iron 2 | 1.25% | Gold 2 | 60.75% | Immortal 2 | 99.94% |
| Iron 3 | 2.61% | Gold 3 | 71.55% | Immortal 3 | 100% |
| Bronze 1 | 4.98% | Platinum 1 | 80.68% | Radiant | 100% |
| Bronze 2 | 8.73% | Platinum 2 | 87.90% | ||
| Bronze 3 | 13.65% | Platinum 3 | 93.23% | ||
| Silver 1 | 20.19% | Diamond 1 | 96.44% | ||
| Silver 2 | 28.35% | Diamond 2 | 98.31% | ||
| Silver 3 | 37.98% | Diamond 3 | 99.33% |
Distribution
Iron: 2.61%
Bronze: 11.04%
Silver: 24.33%
Gold: 33.57%
Platinum: 21.68%
Diamond: 6.10%
Immortal: 0.68%
Radiant: 0.00%
This distribution is based on the data from 1.7 million matches.
Header, all images, and Valorant data owner: Riot - Stats from October 2021 to December 2021: TrackerGG - August 2021 data: Riot - Stats from December 2020 to July 2021: Valking - Stats from July 2020 to August 2020: Blitz
