Understanding the eco game is crucial when planning your game-winning strategies. In this article, we will teach you the aspects of eco-ing and how the Valorant Economy works.
Before we talk about the aspects of Eco Rounds, it's important first to understand:
- How Valorant's Economy works.
- What is the point of Eco Rounds
- Types of save rounds
- How to play out the Eco Rounds
The understanding of Economy can vary between Valorant players and their ranks and is taken differently by everyone. You will almost always have a person that hates saving and will always max buy. This doesn't necessarily mean that it is bad, and it might work in some cases, but the point is that by not managing your Economy, you are statistically decreasing your chances of winning.
4k clutch en eco round#VALORANT pic.twitter.com/djbKySpThN
— LiveUNP (@UnpLive) June 1, 2022
Valorant Economy
Like everything in the Economy sector, Credits (Money) are the main element, and everything is based around them. The amount of credits you and your team have for a given round determines how strong you will be in terms of Abilities, Shield, and Weapons. By having a better Weapon, like Vandal, where the damage and recoil control is better than, for instance, a Spectre, you are statistically improving your chances of winning the round by being "stronger" than the enemy. Shield and Abilities are the second part which are equally important and play a crucial role.
To better understand the Economy, let's first put it into numbers where everything will be more clear to us. On the first round of each side, i.e., the Pistol rounds, we are given 800 Credits; if you win a round, you will receive 3000 Credits, and if you lose, you will earn 1900 Credits. This already makes a big difference since one side can afford a combination of full shield, Spectre, and an Ability Point, whereas the enemies are not given much choice in buying power.
If the enemies proceed to lose two rounds in a row, they receive a Compensation of 500 Credits and 1000 Credits if the streak grows to three games. When winning, you don't receive a bonus to balance the game and give a chance to the losing team. But if you win a round and manage to survive, you are getting 3000 Credits and still having your weapon from the last round, which boosts your Economy.
Every kill is rewarded with 200 Credits; every spike plant is rewarded with 300 Credits. Credits get a reset after rounds 12 and 24, respectfully, and if you manage to go into Overtime, they will reset to 5000 every round in the Overtime.
Why Should I Have Eco Rounds
Since we now have a better understanding of the Valorants economy, we will proceed with the thing that we came here for, the Eco Rounds. We previously mentioned that once you lose the pistol round, you will only receive 1900 Credits as opposed to the 3000 the Winning team will receive. The purpose of saving credits and managing your Economy is solely based on your buying power.
One of the most common rounds to save is the round right after the pistol round that you unfortunately lost. Winning the first round is REALLY important, but if you lose it, losing the second round is significantly less impactful. By losing the second round while saving, you will have 1900 Credits that you previously earned for losing the first round, another 1900 Credits for the second one, and the losing streak bonus of 200 Credits. To this, you could always add up a kill or two that you could snatch in that save round, which will result in you having 4000 or more credits for the THIRD round.
when players in ranked buy every round but I'm struggling with the new Great Depression economy in Valorant pic.twitter.com/svEWk2BeUl
— ROY (@RealStrongLegs) June 25, 2021
Winning a round with a Spectre + an ability point is highly unlikely compared to the enemy having a Vandal or a Spectre + Full shield + Ability point. This being highly unlikely is what the Eco Rounds are based upon. INCREASING your chances of winning by giving yourself better weapons, shield, or abilities that will naturally help you play out the round better. Valorant games aren't lost in a couple of rounds, but a total of 13 of them (or more if Overtime).
Losing a particular round in order to have better equipment, the next one doesn't really harm your game but will instead pump it. Save rounds are something High Medal players are masters of and give full respect to. You will almost always hear a couple of "SAVE" calls in the game if you end up in a game that's slightly higher in ranking, and rarely will anyone oppose it.
Types Of Eco Rounds
Splitting up the types of Eco Rounds can be done in countless ways. We will try to keep it short and give you two ways you could split your Eco Round "calls".
The basic calls which you might hear in any rank are:
- Full Save - you buy nothing and save everything you have
- Half-Buy - usually means buy until you have 2000 Credits left
- FULL BUY - you've saved enough; it's time to win Champ
Half buy Ace with Ares #Valoranthttps://t.co/W4uT8Axd5x pic.twitter.com/lSIzMbeFEy
— JcUnit (@Eli_JcUnit) October 17, 2021
These are the basic calls that you might hear in any rank. The Super in-depth meta calls in Valorant are:
- FULL BUY - same as before, usually meaning buy Vandal/Phantom or Operator, together with full Shield and Abilities
- Force Buy - SMG's (Spectre), light armor, some abilities, pistols
- Quasi Buy - a combination of a cheap weapon, some abilities, and shield. Example - Vandal with Light shield or Spectre with shield and some abilities
- Light eco - light shield and a pistol or cheap weapon, you should try to keep around 2000 credits left in the bank
- Full save - nothing, nada!
What you buy in these Save calls depends on the meta currently popular in Valorant. To be in touch with the meta, it's advisable to watch streams of high-rank players and just observe how they play out the rounds. Looking at patch notes and weapons attribute changes can also influence the meta.
How To Play Out The Eco Rounds
This is probably the most complicated part of Valorant Eco Rounds, and you should probably understand everything else in this article before approaching this part, hence why we put it at the end. Having a clear strategy, knowing what to do in eco rounds, and possibly winning them have a HUGE impact on the end result.
Winning these rounds is super hard and will happen maybe once in about ten tries, but when it does happen, it boosts your Economy so much that you can feel the round-win streaks coming.
To have a better approach at the Eco Rounds, you should have good use of your abilities, as they are cheap and have an outstanding impact on the game. Eco rounds are usually rounds where you go to the extreme. You either fully buy abilities and rush in your enemy or buy abilities and camp until they come. Snipers hate playing against smokes and flashes as they make them almost fully incapable of doing anything in the round.
If you know where to expect the enemy sniper, a 200 Credit flash or smoke can get him out of his comfort zone, and I joke you not, you will be able to kill him even with a Classic Pistol. There is a chance that you will die, but who cares? You barely spent 500 credits on that round, you've lost nothing!
PSA for the VALORANT fam:A force buy is: spending all money when you don't have money for a full buy ie. After losing the pistol, you spend all your moneyIt's not: winning the pistol and having enough money for a full buy and deciding to to buy. This is a regular buy
— Daniel Kapadia (@ddkesports) February 3, 2021
It's a lot more important to play as a team when you eco, as you are expected to lose, and if you want to win it you are required to do a lot of stuff, and also a lot of stuff needs to happen negatively on the opposing team for you to win. Our last advice for the eco rounds is to play cautiously, focus on the advantage, and keep it under any cost (not an economical cost).
If you've managed to kill the spike carried, keep an eye on the spike and camp like you're a Vietnamese soldier in the jungle. A good part of winning these rounds is having a good game sense in the game, so while you are at it, check our last video and take notes about how you can improve it.