The newest map in VALORANT, called Lotus, was added to the game on January 10. However, players won’t be able to play it in competitive mode right away. Riot Games has decided to make Lotus available only in the Swiftplay queue for the first week, allowing players to familiarize themselves with the map before jumping into competitive matches.
After the initial Swiftplay-only period, Lotus will officially become a competitive map in VALORANT. This completes the map pool, which already includes Haven, Ascent, Icebox, Fracture, Pearl, and Split. Bind and Breeze were removed from the map rotation at the beginning of Episode Six.
When is Lotus Being Added to VALORANT Competitive?
After one week of being available only in Swiftplay mode, Lotus will be officially added to VALORANT’s map pool rotation on January 18, along with the changes made in Patch 6.1. Starting from then, players can play Lotus in unrated and competitive matches.
Lotus will also be playable in professional matches starting January 18, if tournament organizers choose to enable it. However, since the last chance qualifiers for VALORANT Challengers North America will take place from January 17 to 22, we may only see Lotus in professional NA matches after the end of January.
If you’re interested in learning Lotus before its official release on January 18, here are some of the best agents to play on this new map.
VALORANT, Lotus, competitive, map pool rotation, Swiftplay, Patch 6.1