Valorant Patch 13.09 Notes: New Duelist Hush, Clove Nerfed and a Warden Buff

Riot's patch notes for Valorant 13.09 went up on October 27, 2026, and the headline is simple: Hush, the telekinetic Duelist revealed at Champions Shanghai, is now in the game. Around her, the patch is fairly light on balance – one Clove nerf and one weapon buff – but it also cleans up how the game talks about buffs and debuffs, tweaks competitive Map Rating and fixes a long list of ability bugs.

TL;DR

• New Agent: Hush, a Duelist from Guangdong, China, built around pulls, levitation and a redirectable flash.
• Clove nerf: Pick-me-up's bonus movement speed drops from 15% to 10%.
• Clove ult change: killing Clove after they cast Not Dead Yet now gives the killer an ultimate point and a signature refresh point.
• Warden buff: smoother early recoil and tighter 2nd and 3rd bullets.
• "Haste" and "Snapshot" become official terms for movement-speed buffs and silhouette-reveal debuffs.
• Competitive: Act Best Match counts more toward Map Rating, and the First Blood accolade is harder to earn.

New Agent: Hush

Hush was unveiled with the "RISE AND FALL" cinematic before the Champions 2026 grand final on October 18, and she arrived for everyone with 13.09. She is Valorant's ninth Duelist, and her kit is all about moving people – including herself – through the air.

On paper, Hush is a setup-and-punish Duelist rather than a pure entry dasher. Displacement can drag defenders out of a tight corner and stun them on impact, while Suspension lifts a whole site into the air for a team to clean up. Flow gives her vertical angles that few Agents can take, and the Telekinesis passive should make post-plant Spike pickups and weapon grabs noticeably safer.

How to unlock her: like other new Agents, Hush comes with a recruitment event that lets you earn her for free by gaining 200,000 XP, or you can unlock her straight away for 1,000 VP.

One heads-up for ranked players: Hush is the first new Agent since Performance Score launched, and Riot warns her scores may be a little inconsistent for the first few days while it tunes the benchmarks for her utility.

Balance changes

Clove

Both changes hit what makes Clove so annoying to fight. The speed boost after a kill was a big part of how Clove players chained trades, and the ult change finally rewards the player who deals with a revived Clove instead of just resetting the fight.

Warden

The Warden (2,900 credits) gets a handling buff:

Riot's goal is to make the gun's handling match its price. Follow-up shots should now land more reliably, which could make it a more realistic pick when you can't quite afford a Vandal or Phantom.

Small Agent tweaks

• Jett: her passive is no longer listed in the Buy Menu.
• Veto and Vyse: the prompt to pick up deployed utility now reads RECALL instead of PICK UP.

Haste, Snapshot and clearer tooltips

13.09 cleans up a lot of in-game language. Haste is now the official name for movement-speed buffs, kept separate from Combat Stim (fire rate, equip, reload and recovery speed). Brimstone's Stim Beacon, Clove's Pick-me-up, Miks' Harmonize and Neon's High Gear and Overdrive now visibly apply Haste, and Waylay's Convergent Paths buff has simply been renamed Haste, since the effects were identical. Snapshot is the new term for silhouette-reveal debuffs like Cypher's Spycam and Neural Theft.

Ability descriptions have been rewritten across the roster, more Agents now show their passives in Agent Select and the Agent Hub, and tooltips have been redesigned to show the Agent, role and keybinds – including when you test abilities in the Range.

Competitive and other changes

• Map Rating: your Act Best Match now has a bigger impact on Map Rating each Act.
• First Blood accolade: the threshold has been raised, so it's harder to earn. Historic counts aren't affected.
• Performance Score: PC players get hover text for trades on the scoreboard, and a new end-of-game "learn more" screen explains how the score works.
• Korea: players there can now buy Radianite Points in-game.

Bug fixes worth knowing

• Clove: the Ruse map is no longer visible to enemies standing below Clove, and the Pick-me-up timer no longer lingers on the HUD.
• Sova: Hunter's Fury no longer hits players standing behind him.
• Raze: Boom Bot stops chasing enemies who teleport away.
• Tejo: Special Delivery no longer carries over into the next round, and Guided Salvo targets the right spots again.
• Cypher: Cyber Cage keeps its orientation on angled surfaces.
• Chamber and Omen: their teleport destinations no longer briefly show up on the minimap.
• Buy Phase: some Cypher, Vyse, Viper and Killjoy utility was visible through the barriers – that's fixed.
• Ability maps: placing abilities no longer burns extra charges or drops them in the wrong spot, and flashes properly obscure the map again.
• Console: Miks' M-Pulse and Bassquake now have controller vibration.

What it means for players

This is Hush's patch, and the first week will be messy in the best way: expect plenty of instalock Duelists, a lot of levitating defenders and some very confused retakes. Whether she pushes out Jett, Raze or Neon in higher ranks will depend on how well teams learn to combo Displacement and Suspension with their own utility.

Outside of Hush, the Clove nerf is the change most solo-queue players will feel. Clove was strong because of how quickly she snowballed after a kill, and a smaller speed boost plus a real reward for killing a revived Clove both chip away at that. The Warden buff is worth a few deathmatch games before you write it off again – and if you play ranked, keep in mind that your best match in an Act now matters more for Map Rating.