The rank-up framework: Identify
—> Implement —> Iterate
In my time as a coach, I’ve had over 100 sessions with students and I’ve become
confident in my ability to formulate improvement for them.
📣
With this resource, I’ll be explaining how to use the “Triple I” framework that I
use in my coaching sessions to guarantee the ranked improvement of my
students.
Identify
Implement
Iterate
Get it done faster, schedule a 1:1 coaching session!
Identify
The first part of improvement is recognizing that you aren’t perfect. We all logically
understand this, however, if I asked you to, on the spot, point out your largest (most
commonly occurring) weaknesses in Valorant, I highly doubt you’d mention anything
that’s actually in your Top 3.
It’s not your fault. It’s part of the human condition. If you knew what you were doing
wrong, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.
So how do we accurately identify our largest weaknesses?
It’s actually quite simple! Over my time coaching, I’ve found that it can be broken down
into 2 steps:
1. Record your gameplay
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
1
2. Analyze your gameplay at a separate time
a. Never analyze right after your session— your head won’t be in the right place
for analysis
Look out for these things (in order of prevalence in rank, from Iron to Immortal):
1. Mechanics (I have a course on this!)
a. Movement, movement, movement
b. Crosshair placement
c. Peeking technique
d. Gunfight hygiene
e. Raw aim
2. Mental
a. Complaining about teammates
b. Auto piloting
c. Tilt
d. Apathetic
3. Map macro
a. Lack of general map understanding
i. For example, running it down Mid on Icebox for some reason
ii. This is hard to see for yourself because you don’t know what you
don’t know
1. Mentally ask questions about general map patterns while
watching games / guides / coaching
4. Agent macro
a. Poor agent positioning
i. Goes hand-in-hand w/ map macro— you don’t know what you don’t
know
b. Poor utility usage
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
2
i. Wasted utility
ii. Utility not used enough
5. Communication
a. Not communicating enemy information— should be a constant
streamline of information going from your screen and ears to the ears of
your teammates
i. Enemy positions
ii. Enemy utility usage
iii. Enemy numbers
iv. Lack of enemies, especially after lots of enemy noise
v. Damage dealt to enemies
b. Not communicating utility usage
i. Utility you want teammates to use
ii. Utility you are using
6. Agent micro (advanced stuff, situational stuff)
a. You don’t know what you don’t know
i. Just have to learn from advanced guides (rare), coaching VODs,
Radiant SoloQ VODs, or your own VODs
ii. The key is analysis
7. IRL consistency
a. Sleep
i. 8+ horus
ii. Quality sleep
b. Diet
i. Healthy foods (look up Mediterranean diet)
ii. At least don’t do processed crap
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
3
c. Exercise
i. At least 30 minutes of exercise
ii. At least an hour of sunlight, preferably when you wake up, in order
to normalize your sleep cycles
d. Socialization
i. Face-to-face if possible
ii. Only counts with people you actually enjoy being around
iii. Ideally at least an hour a day
8. Strategic capabilities
a. Culmination of agent and map knowledge to create effective pre-round
plans
b. Ability to adapt to the enemy team composition in your planning
c. Ability to adapt to the enemy’s patterns in your planning
9. Mid-rounding
a. Intonation
b. Volume
c. Perceived urgency (repetition + intonation + volume)
d. Concision
e. Accuracy
10. IGL’ing
a. Team mental
i. Keep it positive at all times at any cost
b. Adapting to enemies
i. Pre-round
ii. Mid-round
c. Ability to lead strangers
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
4
i. Kind, confident comms
ii. Accurate comms / good strats
iii. Concision
Implement
Once you’ve identified your weaknesses, you can create an actionable plan to combat
them! However, it’s difficult to know how to combat an issue if you’ve never dealt with
that before. As a Valorant coach, I’ve had over 100 sessions with players just like you,
and I’ve never seen somebody get stuck after a 1:1 coaching session.
If that hasn’t convinced you, you can check out the notes for all of my public sessions
on this page:
VOD Reviews
A new tool for teams & individuals that blends everyday work apps into one.
https://michaelcope.notion.site/032b06b2e3ee46fe915708b2eab7c92b?v=055d1d8825094e4a82e3f97f066
3480c
If you’re still driven to do it on your own, this is the implementation framework that I use
in every coaching session to determine the progression plan that I give my students.
1. Identify a common issue (should be done already)
2. Identify the context surrounding that issue
3. Search for the same context in Radiant VODs
4. Compare the Radiant gameplay to your own
5. Create a plan for bridging that gap
Here’s an example:
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
5
🚨
Issue:
You’re lazy in gunfights
Poor crosshair placement
Crosshair frequently found in the wall or on the wrong angle
Poor movement
Crosshair and movement often do not match in intent
Solution:
📣
Play DMs to build good baseline habits for mechanical skill
Simulate a 1v2 clutch at all times
No noise, no music, no notifications
🚨
Your crosshair should NEVER flick to an angle that is already
cleared / covered by a teammate and it should NEVER be inside of
a wall / smoke for more than 1 second.
VOD review with this in mind (you can go at 2x speed)
If it’s wrong, do 5 push-ups
Iterate
After you’ve identified your problem and come up with a solution, all that is left is to
execute, and to execute many times. Given that you came up with a good solution to
your problem, iteration should be the only thing holding you back.
If you find that you have not improved within 10 games, you likely have a problem with
your problem-solution fit, not your iteration. If that’s the case, you need to re-analyze
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
6
your solution and determine whether or not it actually works to tackle the problem you
are dealing with.
When struggling to find the right solution to your problem, coaching is often times the
way to go. I’ve been there before— committing weeks on end to a training plan only to
gain 50rr in a whole month. It’s absurd. Your time should be correlated to improvement,
but when you do it on your own that’s often not the case.
Guarantee your improvement. Schedule a session today.
Get it done faster, schedule a 1:1 coaching
session!
I developed this framework over the course of hundreds of VOD reviews. You may not
have the ability to commit that much time to your improvement, and I get that. On
average, students save 37 ranked hours in their first month after coaching. In most
cases, that means that student growth was accelerated by more than 200%. If you want
to accelerate or kickstart your growth while committing the same amount of time to
Valorant, you need to invest in coaching!
https://calendly.com/shiro_coaching
The rank-up framework: Identify —> Implement —> Iterate
7