According to the latest patch notes, ranked matchmaking has been added to Valorant, but you can't actually participate in ranked matches yet; according to Riot, "we'll have to wait a bit until it goes live." I'm not sure why Riot announced that a competitive mode has been added when it is not yet accessible, but I suspect it will appear soon.

Update: Probably soon. According to Riot developer Nicholas Wu Smith, it could happen this week or even today.

Aside from that, there are plenty of other changes in the latest Valorant patch that apply right now: Omen has been tweaked a bit:

Breaking it down: when Omen teleports using From the Shadows' Ultimate, he will take on a new shadow form and location and shoot it to put him back in. What was not clear, according to Riot, was the transition between shadow and body. Now it should be clearer when the teleportation is over and he is able to kill it, which also explains the "invincibility bug."

To compensate for the slight nerf, the sound of Omen's teleportation does not carry very far. Riot said, "We are trying to bring back the spookiness of the Omen, because if you find the Omen, the Omen should be dead at that point."

Beyond the Omen, this is a pretty big patch. When I spoke with Valorant's lead designer a few weeks ago, he told me that the beta revealed "tons of exploits"; not only does it "make multiple fixes to the geometry of Haven, Bind, and Split, fix exploits, and optimize gameplay," but it also adds "a lot of new features to the three maps will bring "more consistent" surfaces to each of them.

In terms of specific changes, the small gap at the top of Haven's double doors has been curtained off. Some other patch notes that caught my attention:

Some bugs in the Phoenix and Viper were also fixed:

I really like the idea of an FPS where the UI can block bullets, but unfortunately it will not be Valorant. You can read about the changes, additions, and bug fixes in today's patch notes.

Valorant is in closed beta, but based on the participation rate of my friends, invites seem to be coming in at a decent pace there. (See "How to Join the Valorant Beta" for more on that.) Riot has previously said that Valorant will exit closed beta this summer, so whether you join the beta or not, the wait shouldn't be too long now.