Valorant Performance Score Explained: MVP, ACS and RR

TL;DR: Performance Score replaces ACS for MVP and scoreboard placement in supported modes, but it does not affect your RR gains or losses. Use the breakdown to choose something specific to practise, rather than chase a higher number.

Valorant’s Performance Score gives you a new way to read your match performance. Introduced in patch 13.06, it replaces ACS for scoreboard placement and MVP in Competitive, Unrated, Swiftplay and Premier. The score runs from 0 to 500, with a breakdown available after the match. Riot’s patch notes

Riot explicitly states that Performance Score does not affect your RR gains or losses. Treating it as a target for earning more rank points would be a mistake. Riot’s Performance Score guide

For improvement, the useful question is what the breakdown prompts you to review.

What goes into Performance Score?

Riot lists these inputs, in order of their impact:

• Damage.
• Kills adjusted for their context.
• Deaths adjusted for their context.
• Trades, including securing a trade and being traded.
• Assists.
• Utility use, normalized for the agent.
• Spike plants.
• Spike defuses.

The breakdown presents per-round values. Riot’s guide does not provide an exact calculation formula or numerical weights for each category. Official explanation

That gives you useful categories to investigate, but it does not justify assigning an invented points value to a particular play.

Why the highest kill count may not mean MVP

The new system considers contributions beyond raw kills. A lower-kill player can therefore finish above someone with more eliminations. You can inspect the end-of-game breakdown to understand which areas contributed to the result. Patch 13.06 competitive changes

Our coaching recommendation is to resist turning that comparison into an argument about who deserved to win. A scoreboard disagreement rarely gives you something useful to practise.

Instead, choose a moment where your own decision was uncertain. Perhaps you followed an entry too slowly, used a flash before anyone could swing, or took another fight when your team already controlled the site. Those are specific decisions you can inspect and change.

Turn the breakdown into one replay question

Imagine reviewing an attack round where your entry player dies and you never get a chance to trade. This is an illustrative scenario, not a claim about a particular match or its score.

Rewind to before the first contact. Look at your position, your teammate’s route and the utility being used. Ask:

• Could you see the defender your teammate was about to fight?
• Were you close enough to act before that defender escaped?
• Were you holding your weapon, or preparing utility when the fight began?
• Had another angle made following unsafe?

The answer changes the practice task.

If you were too far behind, work on arriving with the entry. If you had utility equipped, coordinate its timing before the push. If a second defender blocked the route, the team may need to clear that threat before committing.

Simply telling yourself to “trade more” misses those differences.

For a closer look at the movement behind these situations, read our guide to entry paths and team space.

Choose a cue you can use during the next match

A review becomes useful when it changes something you can recognize under pressure.

For the example above, try this cue:

Before my teammate takes contact, identify the angle I can trade from.

Use it during the next session. Afterwards, review a few relevant rounds and check whether you were available to support the fight.

Do not judge the habit only by whether you secured the kill. You might arrive correctly and miss. You might also get a kill after arriving too late to help. Review the timing and decision separately from the outcome.

If your own early deaths are the recurring problem, use the same approach with our first-death review guide.

Avoid changing your play just to protect a number

A tempting response to any performance metric is to pursue the actions that look good on the report.

Before changing your behaviour, ask what the round needed. Was another duel necessary? Could your teammate support it? Would staying alive preserve the crossfire or help defend the planted spike?

Our recommendation is to use the report to locate questions, then answer them with the round’s actual information. Avoid assuming that one number explains every decision.

Common questions

Does a higher Performance Score directly give me more RR?

No. Riot explicitly separates this score from RR gains and losses. That does not mean every other aspect of individual performance is irrelevant to ranked progression. Riot’s clarification

What score should I aim for?

We would not set a universal target. Choose a repeatable decision to improve, such as being available for a trade, and review whether you executed it.

What should I do after a disappointing match?

Pick one round you can learn from. Identify the information you had, the choice you made and one cue for next time. Keep that cue visible before you queue again.

Turn your next match into a practice plan

You’ve seen the score. Now choose what to work on.

UpForge helps you approach improvement with focused coaching. Start with the problem you keep noticing, whether that’s early deaths, missed trades or utility timing, and make it the focus of your next session.

Join UpForge and take the next step in your improvement