Riot Games published VALORANT Patch 13.08 on October 13, 2026, opening V26 Act 6. The patch introduces a new Map Rating system, reworks Corrode’s mid section and defender rotations, rotates the Competitive and Deathmatch map pool, and releases enforcement statistics covering the previous act. Written by Kenny “Karnifexlol” Cameron, it is the first patch of the act.
Map Rating: A Per-Map Skill Grade Starting From Zero
The headline feature is Map Rating, a numerical score from 0 to 500 paired with a letter grade from C to S, tracked individually for each map. The system draws on four inputs: Overall Win Rate, Attacker Win Rate, Defender Win Rate, and Performance Score. Recent matches carry more weight than older ones, meaning the rating responds quickly to form changes.
Two design choices stand out. First, Map Rating is available only in Competitive and Premier queues — Unrated and Swiftplay matches do not count. Second, everyone starts at zero regardless of match history. Riot Games framed the feature with the line “Time to see if your favorite map is your best map,” but the practical effect is that early ratings will be volatile. A player who has grinded 200 games on Bind will begin Act 6 with the same blank slate as someone queueing it for the first time.
The rating is private. Teammates and opponents cannot see it, so there is no lobby-display pressure — at least not yet.
Corrode Rework and the Map Pool Rotation
Bind and Corrode enter the Competitive and Deathmatch pool; Ascent and Split are out. That removes two of the most structured, utility-heavy maps in the game and replaces them with Bind’s teleporter-based tempo and a reworked Corrode.
Riot Games said the Corrode changes were informed by “more than a year of watching games and gathering data.” The stated goal for mid is straightforward: “Mid has felt like a bit of a brawl, and we want fights here to be more predictable for both sides.”
The specific changes:
- The Mid half wall is now metal and moved out one meter. This reduces wall spam through mid and lets attackers sneak into A Link without being visible from Top Mid.
- Boxes at the back of Lower Mid shifted toward B, with a new jump-up added. A wall in Lower Mid was raised to prevent peeking from the relocated boxes.
- Defender spawn pathing toward A Site and B Site was adjusted to shorten rotations and improve retakes.
- The A Site plant zone was tweaked to make post-plant from A Link less effective.
The net effect: attackers gain a safer route through Lower Mid into A Link, while defenders get faster access to both sites on retake. Mid fights should reward positioning over spam, which is the stated intent. Whether that holds up in practice depends on how quickly players find new angles to abuse — a cycle Riot has seen before on every map rework.
Riot also included the aside “Happy belated birthday, Corrode!” in the patch notes, which is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a map that spent most of its life in the rotation’s lower tiers.
Performance Score Tuning and Vanguard Enforcement Numbers
Patch 13.08 also details Performance Score adjustments that went live in Patch 13.06. Riot increased the score impact of Damage, Adjusted Kills, and Adjusted Deaths (which include First Bloods and First Deaths), and made Chamber-specific adjustments to better reflect his utility use. At launch, Performance Score and ACS agreed on Match MVP roughly 70 percent of the time — a figure Riot offered as a baseline, presumably to show the gap it is trying to close.
On the enforcement side, Riot published Act 5 ban statistics covering August 18 through October 1, 2026:
- 171,000+ cheaters banned
- 54,000+ botters
- 76,000+ for rank manipulation
- 74,000+ for toxicity or comms abuse
- 288,000+ for repeated AFK or gameplay abuse
- 14,000+ for streamsniping or instalocking tools
Riot said it would begin sharing these numbers more regularly as part of a “new effort to provide more transparency about the actions we’ve taken against problematic players in our community.” The studio also noted that “your reports help us improve our tooling and detection methods, so please continue to report in-game.” The transparency is welcome; whether the numbers move the needle is a separate question Riot acknowledged with the caveat: “And we know we still have a lot of work to do, and we’ll keep you updated as we do it.”
Other Changes
- Killjoy’s Alarmbot now correctly triggers its destruction VFX and audio when the projectile is destroyed by moving doorways.
- A new Queue and Mode Select interface launched for matchmade and custom games, and a navigation bar was added to the Career page for easier access to Rank Legacy, Accolades, and Map Rating.
- Bug fixes addressed an incorrect Masterful accolade threshold in Competitive, footstep and bodyfall audio issues in Fog of War, gun bounce audio, and a Warden scope reticle misalignment during full auto fire.
- Two known issues remain: Team MVP not displaying correctly in Match History, and the Range in Queue feature being disabled after some players became stuck in a bugged queue state.
What This Means for Ranked Players
If Ascent or Split was your best map, that advantage is gone for the rest of the act. Bind rewards aggressive teleporter plays and fast executes; Corrode now offers a more defined mid control fight with clearer attacker paths into A Link. Expect a short period of chaos as players relearn Corrode’s mid timings — the metal wall change alone will break a lot of привычка wall-bang routines.
Map Rating starts at zero for everyone, so the first week of Act 6 is effectively a placement period for every map. If you want an accurate rating quickly, queue the same map repeatedly rather than spreading matches across the pool. The recency weighting means a hot streak early will inflate the number, and a cold streak will deflate it just as fast.
For Chamber mains, the Performance Score adjustment should make the MVP screen feel less arbitrary when utility usage is high. For everyone else, the increased weight on Damage and Adjusted Kills means raw output matters slightly more than it did at 13.06 launch.