I Came Back to Valorant After 3 Years and the Ranks Felt So Empty

For me, Valorant is one of the most enjoyable competitive games out there. Their game design, character design, art, and community are all top-notch. The game evolves at a steady pace, with agents and maps being constantly introduced year over year, making it harder and harder to relearn the scene.

However, I noticed one glaring difference between my time of playing hundreds of games in each act back in 2023 and trying it again in 2026 – the ranks were more indistinguishable than ever and felt really empty, at least for my experience on SEA servers.

Ranks Felt Like Just an Empty Title Apart from the Top 1%

I’ve queued several games over the past month just to try it out again. The game placed me at Gold 1, but my previous rank was Ascendant. Did I perform well during my placement matches? I believe so, but that wasn’t the problem.

Throughout the games, I noticed that almost every match had a smurf account or a weapon with a Diamond/Ascendant/Immortal buddy, but they were playing in the Silver/Gold/Platinum because that’s their current rank.

While the game is still enjoyable competitively, it really feels like the ranks don’t matter as much anymore. Players who don’t play the game religiously could have their rank decay and get stuck in limbo, which is the case for a lot of the playerbase and contributes to the same issue.

The result? There are games I would queue in and drop around 30-40 kills, but at the same time, have games where we would absolutely get shredded by one Waylay or Jett. It is unbelievable how often these types of matches happen, and I just want to skip to the part where everyone is on an equal level so I can know my real rank and find a more competitive match.

At this point, it seems like a pipe dream until I spend an ungodly amount of hours playing the game and grinding out the ranks again.

In a way, my matches felt like it was just a random unrated match with players being more toxic when things don’t go their way. The ranks feel so empty, but maybe apart from those who kept up and stayed at the Ascendant/Immortal/Radiant levels.

In that current situation, I still enjoyed going back to Valorant and learning about the new agents, maps, agent reworks, and even new weapons after the long hiatus. The Outlaw and the Bandit was a massive surprise, since I believed that every single “type” of weapon would’ve been covered already – who would’ve thought a middle ground between a Ghost and a Sheriff would be so satisfying?

And one last point: it is so satisfying that Clove’s existence would fix the lack-of-controller players issue the game had back when I was playing. A very aggressive controller, almost like a pseudo-duelist, could fill the thirst of players going for exchanges while also filling the need for a smoker on the team.

For those who also played during Valorant’s peak and are looking to start again, it does get better and is worth looking into again!