Ranked Mode On Hold, for Now

While Patch 0.49 did roll out, unexpected service issues & bugs prevented Riot from activating Rated mode. An ETA hasn’t been announced, but they did state they “will let you know tomorrow.”

Executive Producer, Anna Donlon noted earlier in the day on April 29th (as EU servers were coming back online): 

We've got a flurry of engineers looking at the issues some of you are seeing online right now. Not to be confused with a McFlurry of engineers, which would be very strange. Anyway, we're on it, everyone! ❤️

— Anna Donlon (@RiotSuperCakes) April 29, 2020

Stability issues continued as NA servers were updated with the new patch. At 12PM PDT as NA servers were coming back online, the VALORANT Twitter account announced that Ranked would not be activated at this time:

For those asking for ranked to be turned on - not today, sorry. We're evaluating on a day-by-day basis based on server stability and competitive integrity of the queues (e.g. no uncounterable exploits). Today is not that day. Will let you know tomorrow.

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) April 29, 2020

VALORANT Game Director, Joe Ziegler added:

Update on rated mode: We've run into some of those unexpected service issues and bugs we don't want to compromise the rated experience. We're working on them, but until they're fixed we won't be turning it on. https://t.co/t3g6FDEs6l

— Ziegler (@RiotZiegler) April 29, 2020

While fans waiting to jump into ranked will be disappointed, it’s best to wait until servers are stable.

The sheer number of fixes in Patch 0.49, as well as the VALORANT team working remotely, means we should all give them additional time to get things working. The VALORANT team has been great about being transparent throughout the Closed Beta, and this is no exception.

While there’s no ETA for Rated mode’s launch yet, we’d presume it’s all hands on deck for VALORANT’s engineers as they work through fixes to have it running soon.