VALORANT Patch 13.05: Stream Sniping Bans, Champions Shanghai Pick'Ems Return
Two weeks after Patch 13.04 brought Abyss back to competitive play, VALORANT Patch 13.05 dropped on September 1, and it leads with something bigger than a balance pass: Riot is now handing out penalties for stream sniping and instalock tools. Add Champions Shanghai Pick'Ems making their return on September 10, and this patch has more storylines than agent changes. Here's everything that matters before you queue up. 🎯
🚫 Stream Sniping and Instalock Tools: Riot Escalates the Crackdown
Riot confirmed it: "We've started rolling out penalties if we detect usage of stream sniping and instalock tools." First offenses get a temporary ban, repeat offenders climb straight to permanent suspension.
This isn't Riot's first move against ranked manipulation this year. Patch 13.01 launched a crackdown on boosting, win-trading, and stream sniping back in July, built on detection tech ported over from League of Legends. Patch 13.05 is the follow-through: Riot is now specifically targeting the tooling, not just the behavior it enables.
Instalock tools are the quieter problem here. They let a player lock an agent the instant select opens, killing any chance of team comp coordination and often forcing a bad pick on the rest of the lobby. Bundling that penalty with stream sniping tells you Riot sees both as the same category of offense: taking the "competitive" out of competitive play. 🔒
Source: playvalorant.com
If ranked integrity is what keeps you queuing, this is worth watching. Amber's Valorant ladders run on the same premise: every opponent earned their seed, no shortcuts.
🎟️ Champions Shanghai Pick'Ems Return September 10
Mark your calendar. Pick'Ems open September 10, in the client and on the web, letting you predict how the Group Stage shakes out before Champions Shanghai kicks off on September 24. Predictions lock before the tournament starts, and correct calls earn bonus points on top of the participation rewards.
Official key art: VALORANT Esports / Riot Games
Fourteen of sixteen Champions Shanghai spots are still being decided across four regions right now, so this year's bracket is genuinely hard to call. If you're tracking who's already locked in and who's still fighting through Stage 2 playoffs, that's exactly what the Shanghai qualification tracker covers, worth a read before you lock your picks. 🔥
🔇 Sound Sprays Get Quieter: Local-Only Audio
Audio sprays got a range nerf. Riot adjusted attenuation so "you'll only be able to hear the sounds if you're nearby," and this is now the standard for every future audio spray, not a one-off tweak.
The problem this fixes is obvious if you've ever had a teammate call a rotation over a blaring meme spray three rooms away. Comms clarity wins rounds, and a spray that used to broadcast across half the map was actively working against your team. 🎧
🎯 Range Practice: Configurable Bot Count
Small quality-of-life win for PC players: Range Practice now lets you pick how many bots spawn, choosing between 1, 5, or 10. Default stays at 5. If you're grinding crosshair placement solo, dropping to 1 bot means way less clutter between reps; cranking to 10 turns your warmup into a stress test.
🐛 Bug Fixes Worth Knowing
Patch 13.05 also cleans up a handful of annoyances:
- Ultimate voiceovers no longer play from an eliminated Agent's perspective after they're out of the round.
- Combat Report no longer misreports Blind status on eliminations.
- Smoke and flash timing got adjusted on Astra, Brimstone, Clove, Miks, and Omen so their smokes stop blocking flash effects the way they weren't supposed to.
- Agent-specific fixes landed for Chamber, Cypher, Deadlock, Fade, KAY/O, Omen, Sage, and Waylay.
None of these are patch-defining on their own, but the smoke/flash fix in particular matters if you've been timing flashes through a teammate's Omen smoke and wondering why they weren't landing.
👀 What's Next: Patch 13.06 Overhauls Agent Gear
Heads-up for September 22: Patch 13.06 is reworking how Agent Gear unlocks. Right now, gear progression is universal across your account; after 13.06, unlocks tie directly to how much you actually play each Agent. Anything you've already earned stays put, and Kingdom Credits keep working as currency.
Translation: if you've been maining one agent, you're about to unlock their gear faster. If you flex across the roster, expect a slower grind per agent than before. Worth planning your next few weeks of queue time around, especially if you've got a gear unlock close to done. 📉
Between the stream sniping crackdown and Pick'Ems locking in your Shanghai predictions, Patch 13.05 gives you two reasons to care beyond the numbers. If you want to put your own read on the current Valorant meta to the test, Amber.gg's Valorant ladders are running now, stakes-driven matches against opponents who earned their rank the same way you did.
