New Valorant patch adds League of Legends’ best feature to ranked

Playing any game at a competitive level isn’t easy – take it from someone who’s currently grinding her way through the League of Legends ranks. Sometimes, you’ll pop off and play like an absolute demon, but you’ll still lose due to better scaling, miracle-style enemy comebacks, or – of course – your teammates being trash. What begins as an epic climb can quickly become a streak of losses, but in League of Legends you’re safeguarded from immediate demotion by buffer games where you don’t actually lose any points. It’s a system I’m sure a lot of us are thankful for, and Riot’s now adding it to Valorant with patch 10.1.

The LoL ranking system works like this: demotion occurs when you’re in the bottom tier of your rank with 0LP. If you’re sitting in Platinum IV, for example, but have lost a series of games and now have 0LP, you will be demoted to Gold I. Riot does, however, offer tier-loss prevention, meaning that you can play a few games at 0LP and stop yourself from being demoted if you start to win again.

This isn’t a system we’ve seen in Valorant, which instantly demotes you if your RR reaches zero – brutal, sure, but it certainly encourages ‘one more game.’ With the FPS game‘s latest patch, though, Valorant’s ranked experience will be more in line with League’s, but with a much cooler name.

Out with ‘tier-loss prevention,’ in with Ranked Shields, Valorant’s equivalent of those aforementioned buffer games. Available in all ranks except Radiant (similar to LoL’s Apex ranks), they’ll trigger when you’re in the bottom division (and only the bottom division) of your ranked tier and sitting at 0RR. There’s a catch, though: there’s only two of them.

If you lose a game, you’ll shatter a Ranked Shield, leaving you with one remaining. Another loss will break that final shield, and if the series of unfortunate events continues, you’ll demote. TLDR: you have three games to get it together, or you’ll drop a rank.

It’s worth clarifying that regaining 5RR won’t reset the Shield; when you’ve used up that tier’s Shields, they’re gone. When you get back up to tier one, you’ll replenish your store, and if you’re demoted to the first division in a different rank, your Shields will reset.

Personally I love the tier-loss prevention system. It forces you to play that little bit harder to stop you from demoting, and gives you a bit of a safety net if things go wrong. There’s nothing more crushing than grinding your heart out, only to be sent straight back to zero after a few dud games.

Valorant patch 10.1 goes live today, Tuesday January 21, so why not give ranked a try?

If you do, check out our Valorant tier list to ensure you’re locking in the right agent for the job, as well as our guide to all the best Valorant crosshairs to help you channel your inner Paper Rex.

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