Ever since its closed beta launch in April last year, Valorant has established itself as a veritable FPS powerhouse. Developed by Riot Games (the brains behind “League of Legends”), this 5-on-5 online multiplayer is the company’s first FPS title and already it is deemed one of the best free PC games in the market today with a burgeoning esports scene, not least because of its highly competitive gameplay and ranked mode.
With Episode 2 Act 2 underway, players are gearing for the long grind ahead and attain the much-coveted Radiant title. But leveling up is no child’s play, and it is good to know the type of players you’ll be up against, and how many of them. With that in mind, today we look at how many Radiant players there are in Valorant (as of March 2021), and how, with time and a little smarts, you can be one of them.
Valorant rank distribution
A ranking system is indispensable to competitive shooters like Valorant. There are a total of eight ranks in the game which are further divided into three sublevels (all except two – Immortal and Radiant) that players have to cross in order to level up. This is how they are divided:
- Iron I
- Iron II
- Iron III
- Bronze I
- Bronze II
- Bronze III
- Silver I
- Silver II
- Silver III
- Gold I
- Gold II
- Gold III
- Platinum I
- Platinum II
- Platinum III
- Diamond I
- Diamond II
- Diamond III
- Immortal
- Radiant
But you have to play ten matches in order to qualify for the ranked games. The real grind starts only when this Ranked Mode becomes available and your efforts and skill begin to closely reflect your current rating. Of course, anyone new entering the competitive arena has to focus on winning games. But your personal performances play an equally important role.
With Act 2, Riot games has introduced a few updates to the competitive ranked mode. Previously, Rank Badges were awarded every time you played a game, filling up triangular portions that represented the rank that you played in. But with Episode 2, these triangular portions are now awarded based on the rank that you end up with.
On top of that, your 9th best ranked win of the Act is your ‘proven skill’, so it’s not the end of the world if you lose a few games.
For every win, players gain up to 10-50 rank ratings (up to 20 for a draw). After being prompted to a new rank, players always start at 10 Rank Rating.
How rankings work for the Radiant title
Things work a little differently for those who are skilled enough to find themselves topping the charts with their Radiant titles. As these are some of the best of the players, gaining (or losing) rank depends more on how they win or lose matches.
Riot Games says the reasons for that is because it believes that those players have earned their way to the top. This is a good way to ensure good competitive play even at the top. You can also check out your ranking on the newly released Valorant leaderboard.
Track the climb from anywhere.
Keep tabs on who’s at the top with the up-to-date ranked regional leaderboard. Available in your browser, from your phone or desktop: https://t.co/xjWLwautb7
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) January 13, 2021
Do note that being inactive for a couple of weeks will hide your rank which will only come back when you’ve played your return game. Don’t worry, for those two weeks, the rank will not decay.
Radiant players in Valorant (March 2021)
In every region, there can only be 500 Radiant rank players. This means that if Radiant players don’t perform, they stand to lose their title to the next up-and-comer. Here is the percentage of players in each of the Ranks and subranks for the month of March:
For Episode 2 Act 2, the leaderboard shows 9 Radiant-ranked players on one page. With there being a total of 1119 pages at the time of writing, the total of Radiant players comes up to 10,071.
However, one reddit user estimates there to be around 52,000 Radiants in the game, based on the data provided by Tracker Network and Esports Tales. But it is possible that the data provided by the two is taken from different samples so do consider this only a rough estimate.
How to level up in Valorant
In a word – play more! The more time you spend at the game, the better you will become. Ranking systems also require players to play multiple games to determine which rank suits their skill level. Having said that, there are a few strategies that will ensure that don’t get bogged down by the daunting task ahead of you and you play at the peak of your abilities.
Firstly, do take the time out to warm up and practice on Deathmatches or the practice range before you jump in a match. Also, when you’re peeking around the corners, work with deep angles and stand back a little to ensure that you’re not revealing too much of your body to a potential enemy. It also provides easier movement in case things don’t pan out well and you have to make a run for it.
Again, focus more on how well you win the game and how well your own performances are. The more convincing the win, the easier it is to level up. Furthermore, you will climb quicker if you constantly win against enemies that are higher than your Match Making Rating (MMR).
Being a Radiant is no picnic. It takes hours of dedicated gameplay, understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses, and, most of all, having the will to push through a tough break, for, make no mistake, that’s exactly what gets you to the top.
