Competitive and ClutchLeague: ranks, placements, levels

In competitive every player has a rank. In order: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Ascendant, Immortal and Radiant. From Iron to Immortal each rank has three tiers (Iron 1, 2, 3...); Radiant is a single rank reserved for the best players in each region.

You need an account level of 20 to play competitive: a way to let new players learn the game before ranked. Each new season you play a few placement matches to get your starting rank.

Rank moves with RR (Rank Rating). Up to Ascendant every tier is worth 100 RR: reach 100 and you move up a tier, drop below 0 and you go down. A win usually gives roughly 15 to 30 RR, and a loss takes away a similar amount.

How much RR you gain or lose depends mostly on two things: whether you won and your MMR, a hidden value representing the level the game thinks you are really at. If your MMR is above your rank, you gain more RR than you lose: the game is pushing you towards where it thinks you belong. If it is below, the opposite happens.

Riot has also added demotion protection: when you are at the first tier of a rank with 0 RR, you get a couple of matches of leeway before dropping.

The most important thing to understand: winning matters far more than personal stats. Chasing kills at the team's expense will not make you climb faster; winning more rounds will.

You can play competitive alone or with friends, with some rules:

• groups of two or three must have ranks close enough to each other;
• groups of four are not allowed;
• groups of five can play even with very different ranks, but then they earn less RR;
• at the highest ranks (Immortal and up) you can only queue solo, as a duo or as a five-stack.

Playing in a group helps communication, but does not always mean winning more: a group that only talks among itself and ignores the other teammates sometimes does worse than five strangers who listen to each other.

ClutchLeague is a different platform from Riot's competitive, with its own rules.

• Matches are 10-player custom games organized by the platform with a queue, a lobby and a ready check. The result and stats are read from the official match data.
• Your level goes from 1 to 10, plus the Elite level for level 10 players near the top of the leaderboard. Your level is based on an ELO score that moves with the matches you play here.
• Your VALORANT rank does not count: everyone starts from the same point, and only how you play on ClutchLeague matters.
• Placement lasts ten matches and takes you at most to level 6; from 7 up you only get there by playing.

If you want the details of how points are calculated, see the guide how ELO rating works. In Academy your level is also used to tell you which chapters are for you.

Most competitive matches are played with strangers. A few habits help a lot:

• in agent select, look at what the team is missing (often a controller) before picking;
• at the start of the match, one sentence is enough: "I'll play B on defense", "who's smoking?";
• follow a simple plan even if it is not the best one: five players doing the same thing beat five different plans;
• mute toxic players without replying: your attention is worth more than the argument.

And remember that your random teammates change every match: the only constant is you. Focus on what you can control.

Rank and level measure results: how many matches you win against opponents of a given level. They are useful, but they have two limits.

First: they move slowly and with a lot of noise. A losing streak can come even when you play well, and vice versa. Checking them every match does more harm than good.

Second: they do not tell you what to improve. Two players of the same rank can have completely different problems.

That is why we suggest watching your decisions more than the number: how often you took a pointless duel, how often you checked the minimap, how often you rotated without information. If those improve, the rank follows sooner or later.