What does ‘thrifty’ mean in VALORANT?

Win those save rounds, people!
Image via Riot Games

VALORANT is a tactical shooter that uses an economy system as part of its gameplay. The weapons are locked behind an in-game credit system. So you won’t be able to get the strongest guns, like an Operator or a Phantom, in the first round. Rather, a central focus of the game is how to use the credits you have to maximize your chances of winning the game as a whole.

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What this means is pretty simple: If you’re behind in the economy, rather than maximizing what you purchase every round, some rounds you’ll have to save resources as a team.

The logic behind this is straightforward. Why would you continue to buy subpar weapons with a poor chance of winning every round due to how much stronger your enemies’ guns are, when you could just accept one lost round and carry your credits into the next?

Saving is about winning the war, not the battle, and every tactician knows that a perfect win rate isn’t achievable. It may not feel the best for the more competitive of the bunch, but learning how to play “save rounds” wins games.

This isn’t to say that save rounds are always complete throwaways, which is where the term “Thrifty” comes in.

What does ”thrifty” mean in VALORANT?

Your team earns the “Thrifty” commendation by winning rounds where you spent less than your opponent and therefore had an objectively weaker loadout. If your team buys three Frenzys, a Marshal, a Stinger, and wins the round against a squad with Vandals, Operators, and armor, for example, you’ll get the commendation.

Learning how to score Thrifty rounds is a key aspect of improving your VALORANT gameplay. Of course, you won’t be expected to win 100% of the save rounds, but being able to beat the odds with less powerful weaponry is a sign of effective strategy, better aim, or both.

There are some cheaper weapons that are good counterparts to some of the better, more powerful ones in the game. If you’re used to tapping heads with a Vandal, try buying a Sherrif on a save round. If you like spraying with a Phantom, try saving some creds with a Spectre. And if you always go for the Operator when you can, try using a Marshal instead.

If you’re asking yourself how to win save rounds to get that sweet, sweet “Thrifty” commendation, there are some effective strategies. On one hand, you can camp your side of the map and play extremely defensively, trying to catch any over-aggressive enemies off-guard.

You can also gather your entire team to rush one site on attack, or five stack towards one side on defense in order to overwhelm the other team with numbers. If this doesn’t work on defense, you’re left with your team together to retake the other site as five players.

Either way, the most important thing is that at the end of the “Thrifty” round, you pick up the dropped weapons of the players your team killed. This not only gives you better guns to carry into the next round, but helps your economy massively because you didn’t even need to buy them yourself.

Though it sounds like an ideal scenario, you’ll need some smooth maneuvers to get the “Thrifty” commendation in VALORANT.


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Author
Hunter Cooke
Investigative Unit. Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT.
Author
Nadine Manske
Nadine is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She covers VALORANT and Overwatch with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region and marginalized genders in esports. Before joining Dot Esports as a freelance writer, she interned at Gen.G Esports and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her favorite Pokémon is Quagsire.