Riot Games has shipped Valorant patch 13.05, and the headline change has nothing to do with agent balance or map tweaks. The update targets two of the most complained-about behaviors in competitive play: stream sniping and the third-party tools players use to instalock agents before anyone else gets a look in.
Bans for stream snipers and instalock tool users
The language in the patch notes is direct. Riot confirmed it has "started rolling out penalties" for players detected using stream sniping and instalock tools, with offenders facing temporary game bans that escalate to permanent on repeated violations. No grace period, no warnings built into the system.
Here's the thing: instalock tools have been a persistent irritant in Valorant's agent select for a while. Third-party software lets certain players snap their choice the instant the screen loads, leaving teammates with zero real say in team composition. Stream sniping, meanwhile, has been a specific pain point for content creators trying to play ranked without opponents watching their feed to gain positional information.
Riot hasn't published a detailed breakdown of exactly how detection works, which is probably intentional. Spelling out the detection method would just give tool developers a roadmap for circumventing it.
Everything else in patch 13.05
Beyond the behavior crackdown, the update brings back Pick'Ems for Champions Shanghai. Predictions open in-client and on the web starting September 10, covering the Group Stage. Players who correctly guess exact team placements earn bonus points, and there are rewards just for participating. Groups kick off September 24.
Sound sprays also got a tuning pass. Riot adjusted the audio attenuation across all sound sprays so the sounds only carry to nearby players, addressing feedback that spray audio was bleeding into team comms at range. This attenuation standard will apply to all future audio sprays going forward.
The bug fix list is substantial. Smoke interactions were the biggest area of attention, with fixes landing for Astra, Brimstone, Clove, Miks, and Omen smokes that were incorrectly blocking flashes and line-of-sight abilities after dissipating. Cypher's Trapwire had a nasty bug where its debuff could persist indefinitely if the initial target was killed at exactly the wrong moment. Chamber's Headhunter was causing performance drops on its first use each round. KAY/O's NULL/cmd was tanking client framerates with each pulse. All fixed.
Waylay received three separate fixes, covering Saturate applying Hinder to intangible agents, Refract leaving ghost snapshots of dynamic map objects, and vision-blocking abilities preventing Saturate from working correctly.
On PC, the Range practice mode now lets you set bot count to 10, 5, or 1, with 5 as the new default.
Agent Gear overhaul lands in 13.06
The patch notes include a heads-up about a bigger change arriving with patch 13.06 on September 22. Riot is revamping the Agent Gear progression system so that each gear piece ties directly to how much you play the associated agent. Kingdom Credits will still be the unlock currency, and anything already earned carries over.
The key here is the timing. If you are currently grinding Agent Gear on agents you rarely play, you have until September 22 to finish those unlocks under the current system. After 13.06 drops, passive grinding on agents you never touch won't move that progression needle.
For players looking to get the most out of their ranked games while navigating these system changes, the Valorant agent tier list is a solid reference for which picks are actually worth investing time into right now. The full collection of Valorant guides covers everything from settings optimization to mode-specific strategy if you want to sharpen up before Champions Shanghai begins.
