VALORANT Points Guide: What VP Buys and How to Buy VP

This guide explains what VALORANT is, how agents, modes and the competitive ladder work, what VALORANT Points actually buy compared with the currencies you earn for free, and every legitimate way to buy VP, including how the route through The Nexus works and where each option has limits. Wherever a fact comes from Riot, we link Riot's own page so you can check it yourself.

What is VALORANT?

VALORANT is Riot Games' team-based tactical shooter. Riot's support site sums it up as a game where you and four teammates face five other agents in a one-life-per-round, first to 13 firefight, using abilities, strategy and aim while one side plants the Spike and the other tries to stop or defuse it. Precise gunplay decides most fights, but each agent's abilities shape how a round is won: smoke to block sightlines, recon to find enemies, traps to hold a site.

The game started on PC and is now also on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Console players can play with each other across the two consoles, but not against PC players. Your Riot account is shared between platforms: Riot's console guide says your account level, currencies such as VP, weapon skins and battle pass progress carry over, while ranked progress does not, so you hold a separate rank on each. Console availability depends on your region; most recently, Riot opened console play in Australia and New Zealand on 23 September 2026.

Agents and roles

Every player picks an agent before the match, and each agent belongs to one of four roles. Riot lists the role on every agent's official page; the examples below link to them.

New accounts start with a few agents unlocked. According to the store guide, a brand-new agent can only be unlocked with VP, an Agent Recruitment Event or an active linked Xbox Game Pass subscription during its first 28 days; after its recruitment event ends it can also be unlocked with Kingdom Credits or Agent Unlock Tokens. In other words, you never have to pay to get an agent if you are willing to wait and play.

Game modes

Riot's official site names the core queues as Competitive, Unranked, Deathmatch and Spike Rush. Here is what each is for:

• Unranked: the full game without rank pressure, the best place to learn maps and agents.
• Competitive: the ranked mode described in the next section.
• Deathmatch: a free-for-all warm-up for aim, with no abilities to worry about.
• Spike Rush: a short, fast version of the standard mode.
• Premier: Riot's team competition mode, listed among the competitive features on the VALORANT support hub.
• Limited-time modes: for example, patch 13.06 introduced Gauntlet: Glitched, a 2v2 mode against seven other duos, and removed Retake mode.

Competitive ranks explained

VALORANT's competitive ladder has nine ranks:

• Iron
• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum
• Diamond
• Ascendant
• Immortal
• Radiant

Every rank except Radiant has three tiers, from Tier 1 up to Tier 3. You gain or lose Rank Rating (RR) after each match, and when your RR fills you move to the next tier. To play Competitive at all, Riot requires your account to be at least Account Level 20.

Parties and Radiant

Groups of two or three players must be within a set skill range of each other, four-player groups cannot queue for Competitive, and five-stacks can ignore the range but take an RR penalty if the ranks inside the party are spread too widely. From Immortal 1 upwards you can only queue solo, as a duo or as a five-stack. Radiant is not just a number of points: you must reach your region's RR threshold and be one of the top 500 players in your region.

VALORANT Points and the other currencies

VALORANT uses three currencies. Riot's in-client currency page and the Kingdom Credits FAQ explain what each does:

Two details matter when you plan purchases. First, Kingdom Credits cap out at 10,000; once you reach the cap you have to spend some before you can earn more. Second, patch 13.06 moved Agent Gear into a new Agent Mastery system: you keep rewards you already unlocked, and you now spend Kingdom Credits on the rewards you want from each agent's track. VP therefore goes mainly on skins, bundles, the battle pass and early access to new agents.

How the store rotates

According to the store guide, featured items rotate with patches and the individual skin offers rotate every 24 hours. The Accessories Store only takes KC. Riot's support team cannot bring back an expired store offer for you, so if a skin you want is in your daily offers, decide before the rotation ends.

Regions, shards and why they matter for VP

Every Riot account has a region of residence, and Riot says it decides which shards you play on, which payment options you have and who you can play with. The shards are NA, LATAM, BR, EU, KR and AP. You cannot change your shard yourself; as party leader or solo player you can only pick a server within it. Players in the Middle East are usually on the EU shard, which, according to Riot's Server Select page, includes servers in Bahrain and Istanbul alongside Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, London, Warsaw and Madrid.

For buying VP this has three consequences:

• Codes are region-locked. Riot says a cash code can only be redeemed in the region where it was purchased. A card for another region will not work on your account.
• Payment methods follow your region. The in-client store shows the payment methods available to your region, and some methods are not supported at all.
• Gifts stay local. Gifting only works between friends on the same shard, and Riot's gifting page limits gifts in some countries, including Egypt and Turkey, to players inside the same country.

We do not quote VP pack sizes or prices in this guide. They depend on your country and on where you buy, and they change. You can see the current VALORANT packs and their prices on our VALORANT page.

How to buy VALORANT Points, step by step

There are two families of options: buying from Riot or your console's store, and buying through a store such as The Nexus. Every route ends with VP on your Riot account; they differ in payment methods, what information you share and who handles problems.

Option 1: the in-game store on PC

1. Open VALORANT and sign in to the account you play on.
2. Open the Store and choose to buy VALORANT Points.
3. Pick a pack and one of the payment methods the store shows for your region.
4. Complete the payment; the VP appears in your balance at the top of the store.

Option 2: the console store

On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, VP packs are sold through the platform's own store; the PlayStation Store listing for VALORANT Points is one example. You pay the console store with your console wallet or card, and refunds for those purchases go through Sony or Microsoft rather than Riot.

Option 3: a Riot prepaid card or cash code

Riot sells prepaid cards and gift codes for its games, and its prepaid card page lists VALORANT among them. Riot's own rules for these codes: the code must match your account's region, the whole value goes to one game in one use, and codes are redeemed for the PC versions of Riot's games on Riot's redeem page, where the VP usually arrives quickly but can take up to 24 hours. Since Riot's console guide says VP is shared across your Riot account, a console player may be able to use VP redeemed this way, but confirm in your client before buying a card for that purpose.

Option 4: through The Nexus

If paying Riot directly is hard where you live, for example because your card is not accepted, a store lets you pay with local methods. On The Nexus there are two VALORANT routes:

1. Open our VALORANT hub for VP packs, or our Riot Access cards if you would rather receive a Riot prepaid code and redeem it yourself.
2. Choose the region that matches your Riot account, then the pack or card value.
3. Read the delivery method on the product page before you pay: it tells you whether the VP is added using your Riot ID, sent as a code you redeem yourself, or added by our team signing in to your account.
4. Pay with one of the methods shown at checkout. In Egypt they include Vodafone Cash and InstaPay.
5. Follow your order page: VP top-ups show status updates until the VP lands in your account, and codes appear there for you to redeem.

Ways to get VALORANT Points compared

Rank boosting, honestly

Rank boosting means a stronger player helps you climb, either by playing on your account (solo boosting) or by queuing with you (duo boosting). We offer VALORANT rank boosting, and we want you to decide with the full picture. Riot's shared accounts page says that having someone else play ranked on your account violates its terms and can lead to a temporary or permanent ban. In July 2026 Riot also announced stronger anti-boosting enforcement that can penalise the booster, the boosted account and players who queue with it, with account suspensions, rank and MMR reversions, reward reversals and, for repeated severe cases, permanent bans.

Refunds and protecting yourself when you spend

Riot's VALORANT refund policy allows refunds only on unused in-game content and unused VP bought in the last 14 days. Content counts as used once you reach a match loading screen with it equipped. Bundles, used or upgraded skins, agents, premium battle passes, Radianite Points and anything bought with Kingdom Credits cannot be refunded, and a pending gift blocks all refunds. Riot's global refund policy adds that cash refunds only go back to payment methods that can process them: card and PayPal payments can, gift cards and prepaid cards cannot. Store purchases made through Sony or Microsoft are refunded by those stores.

Your first week in VALORANT

1. Play the tutorial and a few Unranked matches to learn buying weapons, planting and defusing.
2. Try one agent from each role, then keep two you enjoy.
3. Warm up in Deathmatch before longer sessions; aim improves with short, regular practice.
4. Spend your first Kingdom Credits on the agent you play most, not on accessories.
5. Reach Account Level 20, then start Competitive with your two agents.
6. Decide on VP last: most players get the most from a battle pass or one skin line for a weapon they use every round.

How we keep this guide accurate

Everything in this guide that describes how VALORANT, its currencies and its rules work is based on Riot's own pages, linked in the text and in the source list below, and was checked against them on the date shown at the top, against patch 13.06. Store rotations, agent unlock rules and console availability change with patches, so we review this page after each major update. If you spot something that has changed, use the correction link at the end of the article and we will fix it.