I started playing this game since beta but never really took it seriously- I just played casually. I introduced my bf to the game and taught him the basics since it was his first FPS and for a while we played really well together because our skill level was relatively the same.

Then he became more confident and the inner gamer rage in him would come out and he’d start tilting in early rounds and yelling at me and our friends and blaming us for his deaths and rr losses. He used to backseat game when spectating me and complain to the whole team whenever he died but he stopped when I told him how distracting it was.

Recently I stopped playing comp with him because the toxicity got into my head too much. As soon as he hit a rank higher than me he began to jokingly ego me and shit talk other players in my rank. I don’t play the game as often as him so I didn’t have as much time to rank up like he did. (Dude hops on as soon as he logs off from work and plays until he’s ready to sleep.) I work an hour away from home and I have things to do when I get home too. I hated whenever I was in a 1v3 situation and he would sigh “ggs” as if he already expected me to fail. I clutched a 1v4 using a frenzy against ARs the game before and I still let that get in my head.

Recently we played with a friend of ours with a much lower rank, and he was mauling the entire game. At one point he yelled at him to not even touch comp until he got better and when the game ended and that friend left our discord vc, he told the group he’s never playing with him again. Maybe I’m not competitive enough to understand, but I don’t see how yelling at your teammates (who are also your friends!!) is going to make them play any better. It’s a video game. Imagine shit talking your own friends over a video game. Imagine yelling at your gf in front of your friends over a video game. When he yells at me, I let it get in my head and I end up having no faith in myself because he doesn’t have faith in me. If it was anyone else I wouldn’t care.

Honestly I’m proud of his rank improvement but his ego and toxicity pisses me off. Our group of friends called him out for talking shit once too and one them said they actually felt bad for me so at least I’m not delusional. Also, I’ve discussed all of this with him already. Luckily I found some people who also play casually like me but it’s hard to get us all together since we’re all working adults.

Edit: Thank you everyone for all of your replies, I didn’t expect this to blow up nor did I really want it to- I just wanted to rant. I’m aware a game isn’t the one to blame for someone’s behavior, but this is Valorant related and it’s helpful to hear perspectives from other ranks and other players from the same game and also hearing where some of that frustration comes from in competitive players. Thanks again!