Death of ranked? ProCity’s rise has VALORANT players worried about future

If you’ve been tuning into VALORANT live streams lately, chances are you’ve already caught a couple of ProCity games in action. Despite a rough road since its launch two years ago, the popular custom queue has returned stronger than ever—but what does this mean for ranked play in North America?

Introduced by popular content creator Tarik, ProCity hosts 10-man custom matches within an exclusive pool of high Elo players and esports pros, creating an environment free of crypto throwers, cheaters, boosters—and basically anyone not serious about competitive, high-quality games. With fair moderation and strict entry requirements, these matchups are more enjoyable to play and highly entertaining to watch. Naturally, ProCity’s success has left players wondering why Riot isn’t building something similar within VALORANT to improve the dying high Elo ranked experience?

To apply for ProCity, you need to have at least one of the following: 

1. Radiant in one of the three recent Acts and more than 500 hours of content streamed in the last 12 months
2. Hold a player contract for an established organization for at least six months during the last two years
3. Finish in the top 50 Radiant in one of the three recent Acts

For a direct invite, however, you have to be a competing esports athlete (or former) in a top-tier team (T1, top eight T2, or GC). The player pool is as premium as it can get. 

That said, ProCity has stumbled in the past. While it showed strong potential in the start as a solution to crypto throwing and account selling, Tarik initially struggled to keep the league organized due to internal conflicts among players, issues with consistent participation, and a lack of prizing. Such hiccups led to the league shutting down in 2023. That said, its return in 2025 seems more promising than ever, with Tarik taking some extra steps to ensure stronger management and prevent similar setbacks.

VALORANT’s ranked queue, on the other hand, continues to suffer from quality and fairness issues, especially in high Elo queues hosting popular streamers and pro players. From throwers to cheaters destroying its competitive integrity, ranked has become an impossible experience for many. ProCity only offers its benefits to North America’s cream of the crop, so what about the rest of the region and the rest of the world? And a custom league can’t offer the thrill of an official ranked system either.

Riot has two options here. One is to overhaul VALORANT’s ranked experience by making it foolproof against those who break rules—but given how deeply rooted these issues have become, that seems increasingly impractical. The other is to introduce a separate mode—similar to League of Legends’ Champions queue—for the best players in a region. 

If Riot chooses not to act, the ranked experience may continue to decline, potentially driving away portions of VALORANT’s loyal player base. Signs of this are already visible as many players, including myself, are now less invested in climbing the ladder and play “just for fun.” VALORANT has also seen a significant drop in active player count in 2025, which can be attributed to Riot’s heavy focus on esports instead of striking a balance between the professional and casual competitive experience. 

At the moment, ProCity’s success seems less like a victory and more like the beginning of a larger, potentially troubling shift for VALORANT ranked.