A player may have set a record in Valorant that no one will break so quickly. He achieved a proud 73 kills in one round. However, it seems that an unintended matchmaking trick helped him, which is frowned upon in other games.
Who is the player? The reddit user and Valorant player lunariwnl scored a total of 73 kills in one round in Riot’s new shooter and only died 16 times. This results in a K/D of about 4.56.
He claims himself that he does not master the game at all. In Valorant’s new ranked mode, he says he was placed in Iron I (the lowest rank) and slowly worked his way up to Gold I. lunariwnl describes himself as bad – not a shooter god like shroud. His performance can be seen in a short video on reddit:
How does the trick work? When he started, he played his 20 unranked matches and then his 5 placement matches for ranked. The result: Iron I. After that, he only played ranked games.
In his reddit video, he shares his speculation on how he managed to get so many kills in one game:
After I reached Gold, I decided to just play normal matchmaking. This here [the record match] was the one I played. I think the following happened: As my ranked Elo went up, my MMR stayed the same […] So I was playing against players who are not at the same skill level.
If this is true, Valorant currently has a big problem recognizing how good a player is. If an absolute pro decides to play unranked after weeks of only playing ranked matches, Valorant won’t recognize how good he is. He will simply decimate his opponents, just like lunariwnl.
Valorant releases on June 2 and the beta ends on May 28. If this system is not intended, it should be revised by that time.
“Trick” is frowned upon in other games
The system is similar to “smurfing” or “reverse boosting”. With these tricks, strong players try to intentionally end up in matches with weaker players to rack up better stats.
Smurfing refers to a practice where strong players create a new account to play against other newcomers. This way, they utilize the experience from their main account and leverage that knowledge against absolute beginners in a game.
Reverse boosting was recently prominent and a problem in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Due to the matchmaking system, players were matched here based on their recent performances. Strong players continually killed themselves in multiple games to afterward dominate the lobby against weak players.
Both systems are a clear exploitation of a mechanic that is supposed to protect newcomers and ensure that everyone has fun. They should not be used for strong players to rack up insane stats. Apparently, Valorant has overlooked this. Or what do you think about the “trick”?
