Riot Games add new Valorant overtime format that includes draws

Riot Games are implementing a new Endgame format in Valorant’s Competitive playlists that features a win-by-two rule while also giving room for ranked matches to end in a draw.

The devs made an amendment to the 1.03 update patch notes on July 7 to include the revamped take to Ranked. A few hours after posting their original rundown for the new patch, Product Manager Jared ‘darkhorse’ Berbach teased that Riot would change “the way that Overtime/Endgame works in Ranked.”

The company delivered with more information about the format which would finally let both teams switch sides if the match needed extra rounds to decide a winner.

“Competitive matches have a new win-by-two overtime format with automated votes on whether the game should continue or end in a draw,” Riot said in the updated patch notes.

In this structure, “teams will alternate playing rounds on attack and defense until a team claims victory by being up by 2 rounds.” Every round will reset teams to a healthy 5000 credits and four points shy of their Agents’ ultimate abilities.

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If the tie-breaker wasn’t sufficient enough to name a winner, the lobby will vote to either end in a draw or tack on two more rounds.

This is where the voting system will evolve along with the current match: the first time this vote appears, at least six votes in the 10-player lobby are needed to end the match in a draw. On the second vote, only three players will be needed to end the game in a tie. Finally, on the third vote and so on, only one player is needed to call the match a stalemate.

A game of Valorant is estimated to take about 30-50 minutes to complete. As such, Riot will also be adding a safety net in case some players aren’t able to commit to consecutive attempts to break a tie or if the lobby just wants to call it.

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“Players might gain rank off a draw but will never lose rank,” they said.

It’s unclear if Riot will also implement this to other modes like Unrated or LTMs in the future, but this is a direct response to community feedback on Valorant’s best-of-one overtime format that’s been live since the beta.