I commented this in another thread but I kind of just want to make it a PSA post so that we can stop getting people asking "is _____ considered high ELO to you?".

Here's some raw data on the rank distribution of players in valorant (I'll skip the first few ranks just to keep the comment shorter, but will use all ranks in my analysis):

https://www.esportstales.com/valorant/rank-distribution-and-percentage-of-players-by-tier

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In statistics, being more than one standard deviation from the mean is generally considered "high." Using google sheets, I've calculated the mean to be top 40.67% with the standard deviation being 37.24%.

One standard deviation from the mean puts you in the top 3.43%, which lies somewhere between Ascendant 1 and Ascendant 2.

In conclusion, mathematically speaking, somewhere between Ascendant 1 and Ascendant 2 is where "High ELO" begins.

(for anyone curious, the reason the mean isn't exactly 50%, it is because the distribution is skewed to the right thus dragging the mean to 60% aka 40th percentile)

Edit: I used a mean of 40% instead of 60% by accident due to a notation mix up. Had to adjust the analysis to be accurate.