Three years of Valorant. Iron 1 → Ascendant. I'm finally done.
I started playing Valorant exactly three years ago, in August 2023. I started at Iron 2, somehow dropped to Iron 1, and spent what felt like forever trying to escape low elo. I watched guides, VCT, aim videos, movement guides, and even made Reddit posts asking people how to get out of Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc. One of the people who helped me a lot was the banana guy, and eventually I somehow made my way up to Diamond 1.
The funny part is that I hit Diamond on an absolute potato laptop. I was getting around 50 FPS, and whenever there were multiple abilities or effects on screen, I'd drop to around 30–35. Add random stutters and packet loss to that and it wasn't exactly an ideal setup. But eventually my aim clicked, and I managed to hit Diamond.
Then came the downfall. The next act hard reset me to Gold 2, and for the next 3–4 acts I couldn't get back to Diamond. Eventually I did, but then I took a 2–2.5 month break from Valorant. I focused on myself, my studies, programming, hobbies, other games, and life in general. During that time I also built myself a proper PC.
Ironically, I didn't even play Valorant for the first two weeks after building it. I built the PC primarily for programming and my career, not Valorant. I'm currently in my final year, applying for jobs and trying to figure that whole mess out, but that's a story for another day.
Eventually I came back to Valorant, placed Gold 3, hit Plat 3 in under 15 games, then Diamond 1 a few games later. After roughly 3–4 weeks of playing, I finally hit Ascendant today, August 19th, 2026, around midnight.
And this is where I retire.
When I first started Valorant, I promised myself that if I ever reached that green juicy rank called Ascendant, I would stop playing Competitive. So I'm keeping my word. I'm uninstalling the game and I'm never touching Competitive again. If a friend asks me to play Unrated, sure. If they ask me to play Comp, they're getting blocked.
Honestly, Valorant taught me a lot over these three years. I met some genuinely great people, some absolute idiots, and somehow became a much better player than I ever thought I'd be. From struggling in Iron 1 on a potato laptop to reaching Ascendant on my own PC feels like a pretty good way to end the journey.
And the most important lesson Valorant taught me?
Without toxicity, you can't survive.
Be nice and someone will still call you dogshit because you missed one shot.
So yeah.
Iron 1 → Ascendant. Three years. I'm done.
GGs, Valorant. You're a fucking shit game and I deserve some mental peace now. 🫡
