Valorant Patch 13.06 Notes: Warden Rifle, Agent Mastery, Performance Score and Gauntlet: Glitched

Valorant's biggest update of the year adds the 2,900-credit Warden rifle, per-agent Mastery, a new Performance Score and the 2v2 Gauntlet: Glitched mode.

Valorant Patch 13.06 went live on September 22, 2026 (September 23 in Europe), and it's still the current patch while Champions Shanghai plays out. And it's a big one. There are no agent balance changes this time – instead Riot added a brand-new rifle, rebuilt how agent progression works, replaced ACS with a new scoring system and launched a chaotic 2v2 mode.

TL;DR

• New weapon: the Warden, a 2,900-credit automatic rifle with a 2x scope and flat 50 body damage.
• Agent Mastery replaces Agent Gear, with per-agent Act and Lifetime levels.
• Performance Score (0–500) replaces ACS for MVPs and scoreboard order.
• Gauntlet: Glitched, a limited-time 2v2 tournament mode with drafted abilities. Retake leaves the rotation.
• New Accolades, Rank Legacy and a redesigned Career page.
• You can now warm up in the Range while in queue.
• Console launches in Australia and New Zealand.

The Warden: a third rifle option

For the first time in a long while, the rifle tier has a new member. The Warden sits next to the Vandal and Phantom but plays very differently.

The numbers tell the story: every bullet does 50 to the body at any range, so it's a reliable four-tap at long distance, and a headshot kills outright. In exchange you get a small 18-round magazine and a slower fire rate than the other two rifles. It costs the same as the Vandal and Phantom, so the choice comes down to whether you want scoped precision on long angles or the faster, larger magazines for close fights and sprays.

Agent Mastery replaces Agent Gear

Every agent now has their own progression track. Playing an agent earns Mastery Points, with bonus points for winning and performing well.

• Act Levels: ten levels per Act that reset each Act, unlocking portrait accents at levels 4, 7 and 10. You can keep leveling past 10.
• Lifetime Levels: permanent progress that carries across Acts – each Act level also counts as one Lifetime level.
• Reward Track and Agent ID: agent-specific cosmetics are unlocked with Kingdom Credits, including the rewards that used to live in Agent Gear, and each agent gets a profile card to show off your progress.

Everyone starts from zero, but anything you already unlocked through Agent Gear stays in your collection.

Performance Score, Accolades and Rank Legacy

Performance Score replaces ACS. It runs from 0 to 500 and is meant to capture more than damage and kills. It now decides the MVP and scoreboard order in Competitive, Unrated, Swiftplay and Premier, and the end-of-game screen shows tips and the score you'd need for a "Masterful" game.

Accolades track standout stats per Act and over your career, but only in Competitive and Premier, starting fresh with this patch. Rank Legacy counts how many times you've reached each rank; each rank's counter can rise once per three-Act block, and demotions don't count. Both live on a redesigned Career page with a new Competitive Hub.

Riot has also lined up more: Map Rating is planned for 13.08, and Competitive Flex plus Radiant changes for 14.00.

New mode: Gauntlet: Glitched

Gauntlet: Glitched is a limited-time mode for 16 players in eight duos. Each round is a 2v2 against another pair, and losing a round costs your team health – hit zero and you're out. Eliminated players can requeue straight away instead of waiting for the lobby to finish.

Between rounds, you draft randomized abilities from different agents and upgrade them from Level 1 to Level 3, with rerolls available. At Level 2, abilities have a rare chance to glitch into wilder versions, such as a Raze Boom Bot you can detonate manually or a giant Gekko Wingman. Weapons change and losses hurt more as the stages progress. It's played on four new arenas built by remixing existing map spaces. You can queue solo or with one friend. To make room, Retake has left the rotation.

Client and quality of life

• Range in queue: jump into the Range while waiting for a match (not for Premier, Deathmatch or other modes without Agent Select).
• New home screen: Home and Lobby are merged into one hub with events, missions, the map pool and leaderboards. Mode Select changes follow in 13.08.
• End of Game has been redesigned with clearer summaries and highlights.
• Voice evaluation now covers Spanish, Portuguese and Korean.
• Anti-boosting: Riot says its detection is banning around 1,600 accounts a day, more than 90,000 since July 20.

Bug fixes worth knowing

• Possessable agents (Tejo, Sova, Gekko, Cypher and Skye) are now flashed correctly if they exit a possession at the same moment an enemy flash goes off.
• Cypher's Trapwire no longer looks active after he dies or is suppressed while reactivating it.
• Ultimate voice lines no longer cut off when you cast another ability right away.
• The "Masterful" threshold shown after games is currently wrong; it's visual only and will be fixed next patch.

On console

Valorant on console is now available in Australia and New Zealand. Known issues include a mode-selection bug when using Range in queue.

What it means for players

Patch 13.06 changes how a typical night of Valorant feels more than any balance patch could. The Warden gives Operator-shy players a scoped option for holding long angles without paying sniper prices, and the Mastery and Performance Score systems put far more weight on how you play each agent rather than just your kill count. Gauntlet: Glitched is the casual palate cleanser. Riot has also said a new agent is on the way after Champions, so the agent pool should change soon too.

This article was written by AI (Claude) and checked against the sources above. Games are updated regularly, so details may change.