Valorant Patch 13.06: Warden, Agent Mastery, Gauntlet
VALORANT Patch 13.06 is live since September 22, 2026: a new rifle in the 2,900-credit tier, a scoring system that decides who gets MVP, a rebuilt progression track per agent, and a limited time 2v2 mode that drafts abilities.
Valorant Patch 13.06 is live since September 22, 2026, and it changes things you look at after every single game. There's a new scoped rifle in the 2,900-credit tier, a new score that decides who gets MVP, a rebuilt progression system per agent, and a limited time mode that mixes agent kits together. This breakdown covers what Valorant Patch 13.06 means for your ranked grind, not a line-by-line recap of the notes.
🎯 The short version
- Warden: a 2,900-credit automatic rifle that joins the Vandal and the Phantom, with a built-in 2x scope.
- Performance Score: a 0-500 number that replaces ACS and now decides your MVP and your scoreboard position.
- Agent Mastery: 10 Act levels per Act plus lifetime levels per agent, and every player starts from zero.
- Gauntlet: Glitched: a limited time 2v2 mode with 16 players, drafted abilities and random glitches.
- Range in Queue: you can warm up in the Range while you wait for a match, with a couple of exceptions.
🔫 Warden: the new rifle in the 2,900-credit tier
Riot added a third option to the tier that used to be a straight Vandal or Phantom decision. The Warden is an automatic rifle with a built-in 2x scope, built for players who want to hold longer angles without saving for an Operator.
Here are the numbers that matter when you buy it:
- Price: 2,900 credits, the same tier as the Vandal and the Phantom
- Magazine: 18 bullets per magazine, 36 in reserve
- Damage: 50 per bullet at every range, 200 on a headshot and 42 to the legs
- Scope: integrated 2x magnification
- Fire rate: 6.5
- Reload: 2.5 seconds
- Wall penetration: medium
The 50 damage at every distance is the interesting part. It doesn't fall off, so the Warden rewards you for holding a sightline instead of walking into a close-range duel. The 18-bullet magazine is the trade: miss your first burst and you're reloading for 2.5 seconds while the fight keeps going.
Expect your first few games with it to feel slower than a Vandal. That's normal, and it's cheaper than learning the Operator economy.
📊 Performance Score replaces ACS
The day-to-day change in Valorant Patch 13.06: Average Combat Score is gone. Performance Score is a 0-500 number that measures more than damage and kills to give a fuller picture of your match. Riot's own patch notes say it looks beyond raw output, and the End of Game screen now shows what pushed your score up or held it down.
The practical change: your MVP and your scoreboard position are now determined by Performance Score in Competitive, Unrated, Swiftplay and Premier. If you were used to topping the board on damage alone, that math has moved. Clutches, utility usage and round impact carry more weight than they did under ACS.
Two things to check on your first games back:
- Open the End of Game breakdown and look at what actually moved your score.
- Check how close you were to a Masterful performance, since that's the ceiling you're chasing.
One known issue: the threshold shown for the Masterful Accolade is displayed incorrectly and gets fixed next patch. It's cosmetic and doesn't affect earning the Accolade.
🧠 Agent Mastery: everyone starts at zero
Agent Mastery is the biggest long-term change here, and it resets the clock for every account. Each agent now has their own Act levels and lifetime levels, both powered by Mastery Points you earn by playing that agent.
- 10 Act levels per Act, resetting when a new Act starts
- Lifetime levels that carry across Acts, permanently
- 1 Act level also equals 1 lifetime level, so progress you make now keeps counting later
- Portrait Accents at levels 4, 7 and 10, which change how your agent portrait looks
- Overleveling past Act level 10 for the rest of the Act
- A Reward Track paid with Kingdom Credits, plus Agent IDs to customize and equip
Everyone begins at zero Act level and zero lifetime level on every agent. Past playtime does not carry over. Your already unlocked Agent Gear rewards are kept, so nothing is taken away, but the track has been rebuilt around the new system.
Riot Games
If you main one agent, the portraits at levels 4, 7 and 10 are now the clearest flex you have.
🌀 Gauntlet: Glitched is limited time
Gauntlet: Glitched is the mode everyone will queue on day one, and it is a limited time mode, not a permanent addition. Sixteen players enter as eight duos and fight 2v2 rounds against the other teams.
The hook is the ability draft. Between rounds you pick from randomized abilities pulled from different agents, then level your kit from level 1 to level 3. Push an ability to level 2 and it has a rare, random chance to glitch: Raze's Boom Bot can be detonated on your command, and Gekko's Wingman can grow to an absurd size.
- Lose a round and your team loses health. Hit zero and you're out, but you can leave and requeue immediately.
- Weapons change as the match moves through its stages, and round losses cost more health later.
- Four arenas remix familiar map spaces into 2v2 battlegrounds.
- Winning teams wait in the Winner's Circle above the arenas while the other fights finish.
Retake is leaving the game now that Gauntlet: Glitched is live, so if that was your warm-up mode, plan around it.
Riot Games
⏱️ Range in Queue: warm up while you wait
Small change, real impact on your first game of the day. You can now enter the Range while you're in queue, or start matchmaking from inside the Range, and spend the wait on aim instead of watching a timer.
- If the queue is expected to be short, the Range may not be available right away. It reappears if the wait runs long.
- Premier, Deathmatch and other modes without Agent Select don't support queueing from the Range.
🛡️ Anti-boosting is still running
Riot's boosting detection keeps taking accounts out of the ladder: around 1,600 bans per day, and more than 90,000 accounts since July 20. We covered how that system works in our write-up on the 13.01 crackdown on boosting and rank manipulation, and it's still the reason your lobbies feel cleaner than they did a season ago.
How to spend your first games on 13.06
Don't relearn everything at once. Pick one thing per session:
- Buy the Warden in a Deathmatch or an Unrated game first, before you trust it in a ranked buy round.
- Watch your Performance Score breakdown after two or three ranked games and see which habits it rewards.
- Play enough of one agent to start climbing Act levels, since the ladder reward is the long game.
For context on how we got here, our recaps of Patch 13.05 and the Champions Pick'Ems and Patch 13.04 with Abyss back in rotation cover the run-up. Valorant Patch 13.06 landed just days before VALORANT Champions starts, so expect the pro meta to test these changes fast.
Jump into the Valorant ladder on Amber.gg and test the Warden in a real match, or browse everything you can compete in if you'd rather pick your game first.
