How Academy works

Every chapter and card has a recommended tier: For everyone, Base, Growth, Advanced, Expert. It tells you who it was written for, not who may read it: you can open everything.

Tiers match ClutchLeague levels and, roughly, VALORANT ranks:

If you have a ClutchLeague account and finished your placement, the guide uses your level. Otherwise you can pick your in-game rank: it is saved only in your browser and counts for nothing on ClutchLeague. From then on every list tells you what is for you, what you will need soon, what comes later and what you are already past.

At the top of every page there is a button to pick your agent: up to three (the first is your main), or just a role. If you are logged in and have played on ClutchLeague, we suggest the agents you play most.

What changes when you pick:

• chapters show the "If you play..." boxes written for your agent or role, and hide the ones for other agents (you can always show them all);
• in "if, then" cards, the variant for your agent or role is highlighted;
• map pages get a "With your agent on this map" section; if your agent does not have one yet, you see the one for its role, and we tell you so;
• the My agent page gathers everything the guide has on them.

If you are logged in, your choice is saved on your profile and follows you across devices; otherwise it stays in your browser.

Study paths are ready-made sequences of chapters and videos on one theme: "How VALORANT works", "Defense", "Mid-round decisions" and more. For each step we tell you what to learn and what you can skip if you already know it.

As you read, the guide remembers where you got to: at the top of Academy you will find "Continue where you left off" and, if you told us your level, "Your next step". You can mark chapters as read and bookmark them. It all lives on the My progress page.

On the All chapters page you can filter by part, tier, free or premium, read or unread, and turn on "hide what I do not need yet".

Academy is big, and there are several ways to get straight to the point:

• search, at the top of every page: look up a term, an agent, a map or a problem. Premium content shows up in results by title and summary;
• the glossary: every word in the game with a short explanation; in chapters, terms are links with a preview;
• "I have this problem": start from a symptom ("I die in the first ten seconds", "I don't know when to rotate") and find the most common causes and the chapters to read, in order;
• "if, then" cards: specific situations with the choice that usually works, filterable by side, theme, map and agent;
• what's new: what we added or updated recently, for example after a patch.

Some things stick better when you have them in front of you while playing. That is what the cheat sheets are for: the essential glossary, the main "if, then" cards, the economy on one page, the most important habits. They are designed to be printed or kept open on a second screen.

One way to use them: pick one a week and keep it next to your keyboard. Whenever a situation from the sheet comes up, look at it after the round. In a few weeks you will not need it anymore.

A large part of Academy is free for everyone: the rules, the glossary, settings, fundamentals, information, many chapters on weapons and utility, the introduction to agents and one complete map. The rest is included in Premium.

You can always read the opening of every premium chapter: it is written to teach you something on its own. If your Premium ends, premium chapters close again but your progress stays saved.

VALORANT changes often: agents, weapons, maps and numbers get adjusted in updates. That is why every page says when it was last checked and for which game version. We only write numbers (prices, damage, timings) after checking them; when we are not sure, we leave them out.

At the bottom of every page there is "Report a mistake": if something is wrong, outdated or unclear, send us a couple of lines. Reports are read by the staff and used to fix the guide for everyone. You need to be logged in to report, and there is a daily limit to prevent abuse.

What Academy remembers about you (chosen agents, chapters read, bookmarks, reports) is only there to help you pick up where you left off. If you are logged in it is saved on your profile, and you will find it in your data export too; if you delete your account, it is deleted with it. The in-game rank you choose while logged out stays only in your browser.