Valorant vs CS:GO: Rank distribution and competitive system

Valorant and CS:GO are two of the most celebrated competitive FPS games in the world right now. While Valorant is a recent release by Riot Games in 2020, CS:GO has been ruling the global esports scene since 2012.

Over the years, CS:GO has undergone a number of changes in its Competitive Mode to ensure the players have matchmaking according to their rank.

Valorant, on the other hand, has had the advantage to learn all the flaws of the ranking system of other games and has come up with a unique Competitive system that will be discussed today.

Before diving deep into the discussion, all the ranks of the two games have been listed below to get a quick idea of the two ranking systems.

All Ranks in Valorant

Valorant currently has eight ranks in the game. Each rank, except the last one, consists of three tiers named serially - 1, 2, and 3.

The last rank Radiant (previously named "Valorant" in the beta edition) has no tiers to it. Radiant is the highest rank available in the game. This makes it a total of 22 tiers of rank in the game.

The tiered ranks in order are as follows:

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
Immortal 1
Immortal 2
Immortal 3
Radiant

All Ranks in CS:GO

Ranks in CS:GO Rank distribution in CS:GO

Unlike Valorant, CS:GO does not have dedicated ranks with tiers. However, one may distinguish the ranks with the badge colors of each rank. This makes CS:GO's ranking have three primary levels - Silver, Golden, and the Black ranks.

There are a total of 18 ranks in CS:GO, with The Global Elite being the highest one.

All the achievable ranks in CS:GO are listed below in order:

Silver 1
Silver 2
Silver 3
Silver 4
Silver Elite
Silver Elite Master
Gold Nova 1
Gold Nova 2
Gold Nova 3
Gold Nova Master
Master Guardian 1
Master Guardian 2
Master Guardian Elite
Distinguished Master Guardian
Legendary Eagle
Legendary Eagle Master
Supreme Master First Class
The Global Elite

Getting started with the CS:GO competitive mode

In CS:GO, one can start playing the competitive mode right away from the beginning. However, the player is unranked initially.

To achieve a certain rank, the player has to get 10 wins in the competitive mode. During these initial competitive games with an unranked ID, the player faces opponents along with teammates of mixed ranks, starting with the lower ranks and going far up. This is done to decide the player's capability, which helps in assigning the first rank.

After getting the first 10 wins, a player is then assigned a particular rank, which the game sees fit. Judging by initial games, the placement rank can vary from the lowest Silver 1 to even as high as Legendary Eagle Master, the third-highest rank.

Getting started with the Valorant competitive mode

In Valorant, unlike CS:GO, one cannot start playing the competitive mode right away. A player has to first win 10 games in the unrated mode to unlock the competitive mode.

This is done to have less smurfs and also to help a new player get familiarized with the game before ultimately jumping into the competitive mode to grind for ranks.

However, a player is also assessed based on their first unrated games. This means that the performance a player has presented in his/her unrated games affects the initial games of the competitive mode as well.

This is done to ensure that players who are new to the game and have unlocked the competitive mode do not fall prey to the highly skilled unranked players who have also just unlocked the competitive mode.

After the competitive mode is unlocked, a player has to win five competitive games (also known as placement games) to get the placement rank. A player can be placed at a rank as low as Iron 1 and as high as the Immortal rank.

Valorant has a vast evaluation process in matches unlike CS:GO

As discussed above, one might have noticed that the rank placement of Valorant takes in much information about the players' gameplay and evaluates them through many series of matches, unlike CS:GO, where only 10 wins of competitive matches is enough to be placed at a certain rank.

Similarly, Valorant considers more than just kills and damage during the evaluation of a specific match for a particular player. It also considers the ability usage and how a player has benefitted the team in a particular round.

This might vary with the type of agent a player is playing. For example, suppose a player in Valorant has chosen Brimestone. In that case, he/she might be judged on how many enemies the player has blocked with the Sky Smoke ability or how many teammates the player has benefitted from using the Stim Beacon.

CS:GO, on the other hand, has a realistic approach. So naturally, there's no such extra abilities for players in the game. Each player has an equal share of resources that they can buy.

This shortens the factors that the game considers in each player for a particular round or a match. Factors like kills, damage, assists, MVP, bomb plant, bomb defusal, etc., are the only ones taken into consideration for a player.

Rank distribution in CS:GO and Valorant

CS:GO and Valorant have a similar rank distribution among its players. Most of them are concentrated in Gold Nova 3 and Gold 2, respectively, which is what an average player would be ranked in the two games.

However, there's an added limit for the Radiant rank of Valorant.

While there's no limit for the number of players to be placed at a rank in CS:GO, Valorant has come up with the concept that only 150 players would be assigned the Radiant rank per region, making it very tough to reach. Thus, the percentage of Radiant ranks in the world is very low.

Over the months, it seems Riot Games has turned a little lenient and might have extended that limit as more players are becoming Radiant every day.

According to Esports Tales, only 0.16% of the Valorant players are Radiant, whereas the number is around 0.78% in the case of The Global Elite rank of CS:GO.

CS:GO has an equal approach for all the ranks, unlike Valorant

CS:GO treats all the ranks equally, i.e., the factors that are considered in high ranks, such as the Legendary Eagle Master, are exactly the same as those in low ranks like the Silvers.

Be it the factors regarding individual performance or the ultimate outcome of the match, no matter what rank the player possesses, he/she will be evaluated in the same process.

In Valorant, things are a bit different. The lower your ranks are, the more focus is given on your individual performances than the outcome of the match.

In higher ranks, the match outcome or the ultimate match score is a top priority in deciding the ranks of the players. This has been done because lower-ranked players mostly solo queue or play individually. However, the higher we go, the higher priority shifts towards the team's performance.

CS:GO often has an unfair matchmaking, unlike Valorant

Many CS:GO players have been reported to have matched up against ranks much higher than their own. For example, if a player is Silver 2, he/she might often get matched up with the Legendary Eagle rank.

The most probable reason for such matchmaking is the lack of players in the high ranks or low ranks, as evident above in the rank distribution.

In Valorant, a player can be matched with opponents having a maximum of four tiers of rank difference. However, players have often faced long queue times, which is also another issue that the players have reported in Valorant.

Valorant has a more complex ranking system than CS:GO

In CS:GO, the more winning is the key. If one scores well and wins games in a row, the player might rank up. If a player goes on a losing streak, he/she will be deranked soon. This is as simple as losing or gaining points.

The rate at which one might rank up is the rate at which one might derank with the same performance. This means if a player has a bad week, he might be assigned a very low rank soon.

However, in Valorant, Riot Games have added an extra factor known as Variance. It is the tendency to gain or lose ranks. This means if a player has even wins and losses, the Variance shortens, and the player has a lesser tendency to hover over the ranks.

If a Valorant player is having a bad day or a week, the player might not get deranked soon. Instead, a lot of chances will be given to ultimately decide if the player does fit in the current rank or needs to be lowered to a different rank.

Rank-ups are easier in low ranks of Valorant compared to CS:GO

With the latest Patch update 1.14, Valorant has given the lower-ranked players an upper hand towards ranking up. This was a result of numerous reports from players that it was impossible to rank up in the Iron. Players in the low ranks have even got two rank-ups at once after a single match.

However, as discussed before, Valve treats all ranks in CS:GO equally. Thus, it has no such biased evaluation towards low ranked players.

Edited by Shaheen Banu