VALORANT ranks in order
VALORANT has 25 competitive ranks, running from Iron 1 at the bottom to Radiant at the top. Eight of the nine divisions split into three numbered tiers; Radiant is a single rank reserved for the best players in each region.
Every rank, lowest to highest
IRON 1
IRON 2
IRON 3
BRONZE 1
BRONZE 2
BRONZE 3
SILVER 1
SILVER 2
SILVER 3
GOLD 1
GOLD 2
GOLD 3
PLATINUM 1
PLATINUM 2
PLATINUM 3
DIAMOND 1
DIAMOND 2
DIAMOND 3
ASCENDANT 1
ASCENDANT 2
ASCENDANT 3
IMMORTAL 1
IMMORTAL 2
IMMORTAL 3
RADIANTUnlocking Competitive
Account requirement
Competitive stays locked until your account reaches level 20. It’s a deliberate barrier — it forces enough Unrated games to learn the maps before rank is on the line.
Placement matches
Your first rank comes from five placement matches, weighted by how you perform in them and by your hidden matchmaking rating from Unrated.
Placement ceiling
No matter how well placements go, you can’t place directly into Immortal or Radiant. Those have to be climbed to.
How Rank Rating works
Each rank holds a bar of Rank Rating, usually shortened to RR. Winning earns RR, losing costs it, and filling the bar promotes you to the next tier. Drop to zero and lose again and you fall back a tier.
How much RR a single game is worth depends mostly on whether you won, with your individual performance mattering more at lower ranks and progressively less as you climb. By Immortal and above, the result of the match is effectively all that counts — which is why fragging out in a loss stops rescuing your climb at the top end.
Immortal, Radiant and the leaderboard
The ladder changes shape at the top. From Immortal upward, players are ranked against each other on a regional leaderboard rather than simply accumulating RR in isolation, and Radiant is capped at a small number of places per region.
That cap is the reason Radiant is genuinely rare: you don’t reach it by grinding a bar to full, you reach it by displacing someone already there.
Act Rank is not your rank
Alongside your rank sits an Act Rank badge — a triangle that fills in as you win ranked games, with each win recorded at the skill level you won it at. It’s a record of what you actually beat during the act, not where you finished.
That distinction matters when someone shows you their badge. A player who peaked Diamond and slid to Platinum still carries the Diamond wins in their triangle, so the badge and the rank can tell different stories about the same act.
What resets between acts
Every new act you replay placement matches, and your Act Rank badge starts empty again. What doesn’t reset is your underlying matchmaking rating — Riot keeps that, and uses it to decide where your new placements land.
The practical effect is that an act reset doesn’t send you back to the bottom. You usually place close to where you finished, with the reset acting more as a recalibration than a wipe.
Common questions
What is the highest rank in VALORANT?
Radiant is the highest rank. Unlike every rank below it, Radiant has no numbered tiers — and it isn't awarded on Rank Rating alone. It's reserved for the small group of top-ranked players in each region, so climbing past Immortal 3 means competing for a leaderboard place rather than just accumulating RR.
How many ranks are there in VALORANT?
There are 25 ranks in total: eight divisions of three tiers each — Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Ascendant and Immortal — plus Radiant at the top, which has no tiers.
How do you get your first rank?
You need to reach the required account level to unlock Competitive, then win a set number of placement matches. Your placement rank is based on how you perform in those games and on your unrated history, so a strong placement run can start you well above Iron.
Can Bronze play with Gold in VALORANT?
Competitive queue restricts how far apart party members' ranks can be, and the gap allowed narrows as you climb — the rules are tightest at Immortal and above, where party sizes are limited too. Riot adjusts these thresholds between episodes, so check the current patch notes before planning a five-stack across wide rank gaps.
Does your rank decay if you stop playing?
VALORANT does not decay your rank for inactivity the way some games do. Your rank does need re-establishing each act, though: every new act you play placement matches again, and your act rank tracks your best wins within that act specifically.
What level do you need to play ranked in VALORANT?
Account level 20. Riot raised the requirement to slow down smurfing and to make sure players have seen the maps before rank is at stake.
Can you drop a whole rank in one game?
You demote a tier when you're at zero Rank Rating and lose again, so falling from Gold 1 to Silver 3 takes a loss at the floor rather than one bad game from mid-bar. You don't drop multiple tiers at once.
Do you lose your rank if you take a break?
Your rank stays on your profile, but it stops being displayed after a period of inactivity and returns once you play again. Nothing is lost — and since matchmaking rating carries across acts, a break doesn't reset your progress either.
Is Act Rank the same as your rank?
No. Your rank is where you currently sit; Act Rank is a badge recording the wins you achieved during the act and the skill level of each. Someone who peaked higher earlier in the act keeps those wins in the badge even if their current rank has slipped.
Where do most players sit?
Rank distribution — the share of the playerbase in each rank — is the other half of this question, and the honest answer is that it moves every act. We’re wiring a live distribution from regional leaderboard data rather than publishing a stale snapshot.
In the meantime, browse agents by role →