Mastering the Art of Queue Sniping in Valorant: Tips and Tricks
Are you a Valorant player looking to gain an edge in your matches?
Queue sniping might be the strategy for you.
Find out what queue sniping is, why players choose to use this tactic, and how you can queue snipe in Valorant.
We will also discuss the risks associated with queue sniping and provide tips on how to avoid being sniped.
Dive deep into the world of queue sniping in Valorant and get ready to enhance your gameplay.
Contents
Key Takeaways:
What is Queue Sniping in Valorant?
In Valorant, queue sniping refers to the process by which players monitor the opponent’s login status in order to coincide with them in the hope of joining the same match. This allows users to focus on outmatched rivals by making it easier to gain advantages over smaller streamers and content creators. In short, it’s easier to get potential clips and moments against top streamers and rival players. If they’re just one player, Valve’s Counter-Strike isn’t all that great for it. Queue sniping in Valorant can allow a member of a multiplayer game or socially connected club to eliminate a player before the match begins. A streamer can spectate cheaters in an effort to get a better measure of them in order to help catch them. Despite its utility, game developers and most competitive players frown on the practice of queue sniping.
Why do Players Queue Snipe in Valorant?
Players queue in Valorant to determine the abilities of their team and opponent. If a skilled player knows Qt Cupcake 4711 is in the queue, they might try to play on their team or versus them, as they know that QtCupcake4711 is their friend who is secretly a silver player, not a terrorist attack from the enemy team.
Players are motivated to queue snipe being eager to face tough opponents. Josh Duncan, the coach of Valorant team Sentinels, is famed to have asked a group of popular streamers with followers in the millions not to stream video games as his team practiced. This includes streamer Shanks who is accused of stream sniping the Sentinels when they were practicing.
How to Queue Snipe in Valorant?
To queue snipe in Valorant, players must choose one person to be the caller who assesses the situation and tracks other teams to make a final decision on which server to join. Players need to join the server with their team once the queue times are synced to 0 seconds. Queue sniping in Valorant involves playing against others with prior knowledge of their strategies, so it is frowned upon and sometimes banned by online competitive tournament organizers.
Step 1: Find a Streamer or High-Ranked Player to Queue Snipe
Streamer queues are currently the best option, says TheAhrora. The fastest way to locate potential streamer targets is the Twitch.tv and search Valorant. At press time, 183,751 viewers showed. Make a list of all the streamers and check their followers’ ranks to see if one fits your objectives. Then, switch to their in-game streams since Twitch usually has a few seconds of stream delay versus the game’s real-time clock. During the hour you watch, write down the start time of any match queues you see.
Step 2: Wait for the Streamer or Player to Start a Match
Look for a Matchmaking or Searching for game screen, which is when the game is forming a lineup and looking for an opponent, says Anup Shivhare from the app development company JetBrains. I suppose this works for queue sniping as well, as it doesn’t make sense to press the will find a game button before reading the above strategies.
Step 3: Queue Up for a Match at the Same Time as the Streamer or Player
After synchronizing the clocks and the time zone, queue up for the match that the player you are trying to queue snipe is going to be playing. If the player or streamer has a specific start-of-match time that the audience can queue up for, make sure you are back in Valorant and re-queued then. For example, most streamers will be providing the countdown timers for their own match on their stream for the audience.
While queueing, if your queue number was significantly off from the streamers, be ready to cancel and replay another time. The time and clock synchronization made it nearly impossible for the Assistant to not match exactly with the screenshot, but small discrepancies were possible due to microseconds.
Keep these important points in mind. Once in the lobby, prepare to never go to the playground region, as the examples provided in the disgruntled Valorant users complaining about being playground ‘cap’ show it is possible to be matched in a Unique Identity Map issue. Another important thing to keep in mind is not to announce in their server that you are playing against them as the Voice Chat in Valorant is proximity based, giving you an edge if they don’t know you are playing against them.
Step 4: Communicate with Your Teammates
Communicating with your teammates throughout the game is crucial, but it is even more important when trying to queue snipe in Valorant. If you are playing solo and have a microphone connected, you can quickly ask each of your teammates where they are located. If they are located in the same region as you, in all likelihood, you have been sniped successfully. If they are not in your region, you have failed to queue snipe successfully and should use the chance to gather additional information for trying to snipe later instances.
Remember, being polite and professional is a must, especially early in the game. If you suspect you have been queue sniped, try to play on and adapt your strategies. The next game will be a better opportunity for you to try again.
As it is impossible to prove you have been sniped after subsequent games, you should never accuse the other team of sniping, unless your teammate spots them in a nearby webcam view or they somehow slip up and reveal critical information themselves. Always remember that it is a game and subject to chance.
Step 5: Try to Win the Match and Get Noticed by the Streamer or Player
If the streamer you are trying to queue snipe in Valorant is easily defeated and not very popular, they often quit for the day or change servers before playing another game.
This is not the case with popular streamers. It is more likely that popular streamers win more frequently which allows the snipers to generate more footage in which they are shown on the stream. It is also more likely that this footage will end up in their stream highlights compilations or be the subject of a separate break as part of their stream.
More footage entails more promotion for the sniper. There is no easier way to be recognized then to kill or inconvenience a famous player. The following clips showcase snipers inflating their egos during matches.
What are the Risks of Queue Sniping in Valorant?
The two most direct risks of queue sniping in Valorant are that spoofing or utilizing third-party cheating software can lead to a banned Riot account and that it constitutes stream sniping as defined by Riot.
Spoofing is deviating from the Riot queue mechanisms by having a friend join a game at the same time. Using alternate accounts to queue snipe can be just a slight deviation in the same direction that is much harder to detect than having a third party joining in real time. Whichever route the queue sniper chooses, it is against Riot’s ecosystem policies.
Stream sniping in which a player is cheating in-game after having located a popular Twitch Streamer’s game is suspected in part because of the actions in the game. In the case of stream sniping in Valorant, Riot depends on evidence from the stream to suspect cheating players rather than any in-game evidence.
Riot Games writes, “To take disciplinary action against an accused cheater after the fact, we need to prove in good faith that the actions in question are indicative of cheating. If they are, when exactly was that proof provided? And how did they even see it? Someone, tune in and listen, let’s give them a reason.”
Getting Banned by Riot Games
If you queue snipe in Valorant, you run the risk of being banned by Riot Games. Whether unintentional or not, seeing the opposition from within their game and joining them to have an unprecedented competitive advantage is not taking standardized matchmaking and game integrity as intended.
This happened to popular streamer izzybear who was snipe-queued by lordjamsta, the friends of iszybear and jamsta, intentionally banning each other by false reporting. This beef in between involved few other names as well, and in the end, izzybear and jamsta accounts from VCT Stage 3 Challengers NA were banned for two weeks.
Negative Reputation within the Community
A lack of support from team members because of the competitive queue sniping used to have persistence in competitive matches leads to a negative reputation. Teamkilling (switching to an opponents team to kill them using unfair information when they notice you, resulting in 0-2 score for the teamkilled players team and a loss for him), doxxing (leaking others’ personal information), or DDoS attacks are examples of dangerous tactics some players might use.
Ruining the Gameplay Experience for Others
Queue sniping, especially when utilizing on-stream queue sniping, runs the stark risk of ruining the gameplay experience for others. Now, not only are you sabotaging games on purpose to affect a kill death ratio, but you are doing it at the expense of content creators’ streams and their viewers.
Worse still, because of its troll-like nature, queue sniping is almost always inherent sabotage, as it results in unbalanced matches that are ever more detrimental to the casual enjoyment of others. Although it can be a fun way to engage in a rivalry with other opponents, it is wise to exercise prudence and common sense before engaging in queue sniping in the hopes of finding new easy victims.
How to Avoid Queue Sniping in Valorant?
You avoid queue sniping in Valorant by enabling strong privacy protections on other users architecture implementing timeouts to prevent rapid re-joining, and playing without matchmaking (custom 5v5 matches). For example in their article How To Stop Stream Sniping In 2021 According to Professional Streamers Mary G. Brooks, a marketing expert and writer for Dot Esports provides an embed from a Reddit user advising an adjustable timeout setting in case someone wants to rejoin while providing a strongly shielded way of preventing repeated login attempts. While there are some general ways to protect against this such as timeouts on bans from streams, chat messages, joining matches, or logging in, the best method is to implement stronger and better-architected privacy protection mechanisms.
You avoid queue sniping in Valorant by doing one of the following:
- Playing with high-profile users on private servers. For example, Shroud hosts sub-only servers to keep other users from using them.
- Play anonymously on an outdated account. streamer mode does not work. Some users create older accounts simply to play with anonymity.
- Queue on Twitch with a delay against snipers. This won’t stop people from knowing your position, but can be a nice courtesy to delay the advantages of the information they have, especially in the competitive gaming world where all advantages can be key.
- Queue with a delayed stream which eliminates the biggest advantage snipers have
Enable Streamer Mode
Streamer mode is commonly found under the Graphics section from the main options screen, and allows players to enable an anonymous mode so they can play matches without fear of being identified by those on the team they are about to join. As of the latest patch, Streamer Mode allows players to hide their own name, character name, and other player names that are not in their friends list. Streamer mode must be enabled every new match that is joined, which has frustrated some players. A quick and easy way to implement streamer mode is when waiting to join a match, aware streamer mode setting, and hit apply as soon as the match has connected.
Change Your In-Game Name
You can use the in-game name change available on multiple platforms (e.g., Steam, PlayStation, etc.) to envisage yourself as a new, random player reading players’ usernames in your lobby. It might also annoy the players with their settings defaulting to display their friend list with user names thereby constantly confusing them having multiple players of the same username during Nigeria scam-seller practice runs.
Changing usernames can provide you with a psychological level of comfort where you feel like you have a fresh slate when trying to join a different queue. This can help you significantly improve and focus on practicing when the need arises.
Play with a Full Team
Playing with a full team (5-stack) can often be the best scenario for queuing into unwelcome maps. When a full team queues, the system only takes into consideration one player’s preferences, which skews the probability of getting the desired map. Note that preference is given to political votes wherein more players choose the same map.
Five-stacks can easily use strategies based on the preferences of each player to determine the best exit times. There is greater player certainty in exit timing during queue deadlines when the queue times and missed queue error logging is highest.
Players on a pre-made team can discuss a strat like the original Yes Men of Quake.
Ignore the Streamer or Player’s Queue Status
Ignore the streamer or player’s queue status. Whether a streamer or player is queuing for a different mode, a different region, is in a party with multiple people, or is queue sniping someone else in real-time, the only way to find out is to throw in the towel and hope the next attempt is successful. Facts change in real-time, and there are too many factors at play to determine the reason for failure conclusively.
Conclusion
Queue sniping in Valorant is accomplished by queueing at the same time as an opponent to increase the likelihood of being matched against them, thereby protecting Ellim’s privacy by ensuring he is not overexceptionally exposed to other players.
Doing so negatively impacts one’s own and everyone else’s Valorant game-playing experience by increasing the chance of being matched based on other players’ actions as opposed to skill level. Agent Epitoh, well-known for protecting Huntsmen Ellim, was less successful for TenZ when sniping, as he divulged a spray indicating where TenZ was hiding.
Fortunately TenZ was already prepared to make a move, although without the spray TenZ likely could have avoided making unnecessary movement and survived the round.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Queue Snipe in Valorant?
Queue sniping in Valorant is a popular way for players to team up with their friends and increase their chances of winning. If you’re new to the game, you may be wondering how to queue snipe in Valorant. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers to help you get started.
What is queue sniping in Valorant?
Queue sniping in Valorant is the act of coordinating with your friends to join the same game lobby in a competitive match. This allows you to play on the same team and increase your chances of winning.
Is queue sniping allowed in Valorant?
Yes, queue sniping is allowed in Valorant as long as you are not using any external tools or cheats to do so. It is a legitimate strategy that many players use to play with their friends.
How do I queue snipe in Valorant?
To queue snipe in Valorant, you first need to coordinate with your friends to join a game at the same time. Once you’re all in the game lobby, you can start queuing for a competitive match and hope to get matched together.
What are the benefits of queue sniping in Valorant?
The main benefit of queue sniping in Valorant is that you can play with your friends and increase your chances of winning. It also allows you to communicate and strategize with your team more effectively.
Are there any risks to queue sniping in Valorant?
The only risk of queue sniping in Valorant is that you may not always get matched with your friends, as the game’s matchmaking system prioritizes fair and balanced matches. However, the more times you try, the higher your chances of getting matched together.
