I'm a boomer and reached Ascendant last night. My rank has fluctuated from gold to plat but last act I hit Diamond (due to the redistribution of ranks from the introduction of ascendant). Anyway, here's some obligatory tips:

Be a dick-everyone thinks being a nice teammate gets you far in this game. Nah..tell all the zoomers to shutup and watch the washed-up-never-pro pretend like they can clutch

Voice comm is a waste-Everyone says to voice comm--way overrated. I prefer to type awkwardly midround or just resort to radio binds to get my message across. If I'm rushing mid and need someone to watch my flank? "going c" If I want my teammate to wait for first contact? "going c". There are literally radio binds for every situation so just use them and you're good to go

Vote to FF as soon as possible-If you're up 4-0, this is exactly the best time to bust out an FF vote. You might think like almost every teammate that questions it when I do it.."wait what?? We're up 4-0?? Where is this FF coming from??" but that's exactly the point. Get your teammates to critically think about why someone would want to potentially throw away their elo while up by a huge margin to start a game. It will usually rally morale and you'll win almost every game.

If you're down bad, just keep queueing until you snap and alt f4 from a game mid-match-Really think this one is the main reason I made it to ascendant. If you have a bad game, two games, screw it...if you've lost 5 in a row and thinking about taking a break: don't be a loser, hit that Q and take your elo down to a whole new level of low. Rock bottom is a great place to be. If you can overcome your own awful attitude to subject yourself to the agony of queueing repeatedly after a bunch of losses, think of the character building you're engaging in! The more losses you can accumulate consecutively and continue to push through for no reason other than the futility that you have nothing better to do with your time, the more you're winning in not just Valorant, but LIFE.

Keep making the same mistakes-The only way to learn from them is to make them. What's a better way to really drive the point home than to commit them repeatedly, across many games? I feel like this is more just a learning point in general but one that Valorant players don't utilize enough

Spend as much money as possible on skins-It's been mentioned here briefly, there's another user notJheck or something that has written a few posts dedicated to this: it's a pay to play game. Nobody wants to talk about it, but, the reality is, as a boomer with access to more disposable income than most of the community...I have extreme leverage over the vast majority of the community. Simply because I can purchase cosmetic upgrades gives me a severe skill advantage. Every time I buy the freshest skins, Riot gives me hidden RR bonus points.

Solo Q is the best-It's the best for many reasons. First, you don't need to be bothered finding friends (impossible). Second, it's a far more rewarding experience not having to use comm's which is what happens when you Q into a 3-stack that's exclusively using discord. Then, as a solo, you can blame everyone else in the server for your misery and pass responsibility to said 3-stack. Really it's how I think the game was intended to be played. The fact it's 5v5 is a formality cash grab. Eventually Riot will make a 1v1 capture the flag mode that I think they were originally planning this game to be from the getgo.

I wish everyone well on their rank-ups as the act comes to a close!

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