TLDR; AT THE BOTTOM

Let me start off with, I actually really am happy there will be ranked rewards and I think gun buddies is a great way to start things off. It leads to a certain level of satisfaction knowing that there is something to earn at the end of the ranked season based on your performance. I really do appreciate the rewards and I hope to see many more in the future.

The only quip I have is according to RiotBrighteyez the gun buddies will represent the entire spread of each rank (iron-bronze-silver-etc). From the perspective of someone who has climbed through the ranks (started season 1 placing in silver, currently act rank immortal 3), there is a pretty substantial skill difference between the individual tiers in most ranks.

While I understand that fluctuating ranks is very easy (ex G1->G2->G3->G2 in one day), achieving an act rank at a certain rank is a little bit more difficult. Accruing 9 wins without demoting does take a certain amount of skill expression and accounts for some of the variability with smurfs and off-days. I'm sure we can all agree that usually someone with an act rank at division 3 of a rank is usually more talented than someone with an act rank at division 1 of the rank.

With that being said, I think VALORANT would benefit from adopting the same concept that LOL did (by keeping the icons per rank and separating the divisions by different borders) and applying it to the gun buddies for act ranks at different tiers. I'm not a game designer but for a talented game/cosmetic design team supporting a huge player base, I don't think creating gun buddies that represent the specific tier of your highest act rank would require too many resources.

Thanks for reading!

TLDR : ranked reward gun buddies that specify the tier of your highest act rank instead of a cover-all gun buddy for the whole rank (iron-bronze-silver-gold-etc)