Ranked Valorant leaderboards revealed by Riot Games

By Steven Rondina

|

Oct 21, 2020

Reading time: 2 min

Valorant has officially launched its ranked leaderboards, and some surprising names are included. 

Riot Games has officially unveiled the top 100 players in North America, Latin America, and Europe. Unsurprisingly, the list is rife with early Valorant esports standouts, but there are some surprising names that made the cut.

The list includes a number of unknowns, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive converts, and even a few former Fortnite pros.

Cloud9’s TenZ tops NA Valorant leaderboard ahead of XXiF, Skadoodle

Unsurprisingly, North America’s Valorant leaderboard is packed with former CSGO stars. Sitting atop the list is Tyson “TenZ” Ngo.

The Cloud9 star has helped the team become an early contender in Valorant esports despite an ugly breakup with the organization’s CSGO team. TenZ’s attitude has come into question, but nobody has ever questioned his skills and he’s shown that his gunslinging holds up quite well in Valorant.

The top 10 also features a number of other interesting names including 100 Thieves’ Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk and Team SoloMid’s Matthew “Wardell” Yu. Perhaps the biggest name on the list is another former Cloud9 CSGO player, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham. The major winner is sitting in the No. 9 spot despite currently sitting on T1’s bench due to the team’s shaky debut.

The rest of the top 100 features a long list of recognizable names, including CSGO alumni such as Shahzeeb “ShahZaM” Khan, Braxton “brax” Pierce, and Sean “sgares” Gares. 

One of the most interesting names is Damion “XXiF” Cook. XXiF is one of Fortnite’s most notorious players, famously cheating in the qualifiers to the Overwatch World Cup. He was forced to cede his spot in the event, but earned his spot back later on. Despite this, he was booed so hard at the event it actually peaked the audio on the official stream.

XXiF isn’t alone in moving from Fortnite to Valorant and finding a spot on the leaderboard. Harrison “psalm” Chang and Mickaël “Kyro” Cerdan both pop into the top 100.

Who is Alive, Europe’s top Valorant player?

Europe’s Valorant leaderboard isn’t quite as star-studded as North America’s. It has a fair number of notable esports stars such as FunPlus Phoenix’s Andrey “Shao” Kiprsky, G2 Esports’ Patryk “paTiTek” Fabrowski, and Nikita “d3ffo” Sudakov. But most of the higher-ranked players are relative unknowns.

Topping the list is Israeli CSGO pro Gilad “ALIVE” Hakim. The player is currently attached to an all-Israeli team led by former Counter-Strike pro Daniel “ponkt” Punkt. The team has competed under a number of different names including Team Finest and Vandal Only.

ALIVE has competed in just a handful of events including Rise of Titans and epic31 Online. Though he hasn’t won any tournaments yet, this top placement on the Valorant leaderboards suggests he could be a premium talent. Expect him to get some extra attention from larger esports organizations in the near future.

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