VALORANT Patch 13.09: Hush Arrives With New Duelist Kit

Hush is VALORANT's newest playable Agent, added by Riot Games in Patch 13.09 on October 27, 2026. She's a telekinetic Duelist from China who throws redirectable utility — a flash and a pull-grenade she can steer in midair with her crosshair — then finishes targets off with a levitating trap called Suspension. The patch that brought her, officially titled "Hush is here," also rebalanced Clove and the Warden, introduced two new official buff/debuff terms, and shipped a redesigned ability-tooltip system.

Who is Hush?

Riot's official character page introduces her plainly: "Chinese operative Hush uses her telekinesis to close the most classified cases. Fighting with precision and finesse, she redirects her combat utility in midair to disrupt and displace the enemy team before suspending them helplessly for the killing blow." Riot lists her role as Duelist — VALORANT's frontline, entry-fragging archetype — slotting her in alongside the rest of the full Agent roster like Jett, Raze, and Neon rather than with the Initiators or Controllers.

Visually, Hush's official key art (hosted on Riot's own CDN) shows her in a dark, pink-and-purple color scheme with a pistol, two bladed throwables, and a knife suspended around her in telekinetic motion — a direct visual callback to the "redirect your utility midair" idea that defines her kit. Beyond the one-paragraph bio on her agent page, Riot's patch notes don't go deeper into backstory, so anything about her specific case history, allies, or rivalries beyond that line is not yet confirmed on Riot's own site.

Hush's full ability kit

Riot's official Hush agent page lists five total pieces of kit — one passive and four active abilities — under a "Special Abilities" section. None of the five are labeled with a specific keybind (C/Q/E/X) or Creds cost on the public page, so the breakdown below uses Riot's own ability names and descriptions verbatim rather than guessing at slot assignments.

The gimmick: utility you steer in midair

The standout mechanical idea in Hush's kit is that both Flashbulb and Displacement can be "prepared" with Alt Fire instead of thrown outright, then redirected mid-flight toward wherever your crosshair is pointed when you hit Reactivate. That turns both of her grenades into two-stage throws: lob it roughly toward a site, then correct its final trajectory once you see where an enemy actually is — useful for popping a flash or a pull around a corner you can't see directly, or adjusting for a peeking defender who moves after the throw leaves your hand.

Displacement's "resets every two kills" clause also means an aggressive, trading Hush can end up with more pull-grenade uptime than her base loadout would suggest, which rewards exactly the entry-fragging, multi-kill playstyle Duelists are built around.

Flow functions as her mobility tool: it drops an anchor point instantly, and if Hush is airborne when she uses it, she hangs in the air briefly before being pulled toward that anchor — effectively a delayed-activation dash that can cross gaps or close distance onto a site. Suspension, the ability listed last on Riot's page, is the one with the broadest area effect: a steerable projectile that, once detonated, levitates every player caught in its radius, which reads as a setup tool for a teamfight-ending follow-up rather than a quick poke.

What else changed in Patch 13.09

Hush's arrival is the headline, but Riot's 13.09 patch notes cover several other systems:

Clove nerfed again

Clove's Pick-me-up self-revive ability had its movement-speed bonus reduced from 15% to 10%. Riot also changed what happens if an enemy kills Clove while she's in her "Not Dead Yet" revived state: the killer now earns both an Ultimate point and a signature-ability refresh point, giving opponents a clearer incentive to finish Clove off rather than let her play out the revive.

Warden recoil smoothed out

The Warden pistol got its pitch recoil smoothed across the first few shots, with second-bullet spread error cut from 0.25 to 0.2 and third-bullet error cut from 0.6 to 0.5 — a direct accuracy buff to early-burst spray control on the weapon.

New official terms: Haste and Snapshot

Riot formalized two status-effect names that previously went unlabeled in-game. Haste is now the official term for the movement-speed buff (distinct from Combat Stim), and it now appears on Brimstone's Stim Beacon, Clove's Pick-me-up, Miks' Harmonize, and Neon's High Gear/Overdrive; Waylay's "Convergent Paths" buff was also renamed to Haste. Snapshot is the new term for the silhouette-reveal debuff applied by Cypher's Neural Theft and Spycam.

Redesigned ability tooltips

The in-game Ability Description Tooltip was redesigned to show the Agent, their role, and their keybinds, and it now surfaces during more relevant moments, including in the Range. Riot also says passive-ability descriptions were added for more Agents, citing Neon's Battery as an example, and ability tooltip text was generally cleaned up for clarity across the roster.

Competitive and other changes

Riot flagged that Hush's Performance Score may fluctuate over her first few days live while the underlying system calibrates around a brand-new Agent. End-of-game screens now show more Performance Score detail, and PC players get hover text for trade information. Act Best Match now carries more weight in Map Rating, and the threshold to earn the First Blood Accolade was raised (previous Accolade counts are unaffected). Jett's passive was also removed from the Buy Menu, and in Korea specifically, Radianite Points can now be purchased directly in-game. The patch closes with a long list of agent-specific bug fixes touching Clove, Cypher, Deadlock, Gekko, Omen, Raze, Sova, Tejo, and Yoru, plus general fixes for minimap leaks, ability-map placement issues, and a cursor bug on PC.

Hush arrives mid-Act 6

Patch 13.09 lands in the middle of VALORANT's current competitive season. Riot's previous patch, 13.08, was explicitly titled "Act 6 starts now" when it published on October 13, 2026, kicking off the current Act with its own Battle Pass, ranked reset, and map rotation. Patch 13.09 arrived two weeks later as the follow-up that introduces Hush without resetting any of that Act 6 progression — a now-familiar Riot cadence where an Act-opening patch handles the bigger seasonal systems and the next patch a few weeks later is reserved for a new Agent drop. That timing also explains why Riot is treating Hush's Performance Score as provisional rather than final: she's being folded into a season that's already roughly two weeks old, with established Agent pick rates and map pools she now has to be balanced against.

How to unlock Hush

As with other recent Agent launches, VALORANT ties a new Agent's early access to an in-client recruitment push tied to the current Act rather than an instant unlock for every player. Riot's patch notes for 13.09 don't spell out a specific XP threshold or timeline for Hush on the page itself, so players should check the in-client Agent contract or store panel for the exact unlock path rather than assume it matches a previous Agent's terms exactly. What Riot's 13.09 notes do confirm is the release timing itself: the patch, and Hush along with it, went live on October 27, 2026 at 13:00 UTC, meaning any in-client countdown or regional rollout stagger players notice on launch day should resolve to that same baseline timestamp once each region's servers come online.

Why this matters

Duelist design in VALORANT has increasingly leaned on gadgets that reward precise, reactive play rather than simple point-and-throw utility — Hush's redirectable Flashbulb and Displacement continue that trend already seen in Agents like Waylay and Tejo. For the current competitive meta, the bigger near-term swing may actually be the Clove nerf: Pick-me-up's speed reduction and the new kill-incentive on Not Dead Yet both chip away at what had become one of VALORANT's most dominant Controller picks across recent Acts. Competitive shooters like VALORANT also lean heavily on invasive client-side security to keep ranked play fair, a topic covered in our broader explainer on kernel-level anti-cheat software.

What's next for VALORANT

Patch 13.09 is, as of this writing, the newest patch listed on Riot's official VALORANT patch notes hub, with no 13.10 notes published yet. Riot typically ships a smaller follow-up patch within a few weeks of a major Agent launch to tune early balance outliers — exactly the kind of adjustment Riot has already flagged may be coming for Hush's Performance Score. Players curious how other live-service shooters handle this same post-launch tuning cycle can compare notes with our coverage of Arc Raiders' most recent hotfix, which followed a similar pattern of balance fixes shipping soon after a major content drop. For now, the two things worth watching are how Hush's win rate settles once Riot's Performance Score system calibrates to her, and whether the Clove changes are enough to meaningfully shift Controller pick rates in ranked and pro play.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hush a Duelist, Initiator, or Controller? Riot's official Hush agent page lists her role as Duelist.

When did Hush release? Hush launched alongside VALORANT Patch 13.09 on October 27, 2026.

What are Hush's abilities? Telekinesis (passive — extended pickup range for weapons, the Spike, and switches), Flashbulb (a redirectable flash), Flow (a delayed-activation mobility dash via an anchor point), Displacement (a redirectable pull/concuss grenade that resets every two kills), and Suspension (a steerable projectile that levitates all players in its blast area on detonation).

What changed for Clove in Patch 13.09? Pick-me-up's movement-speed bonus was reduced from 15% to 10%, and killing Clove while she's in her revived "Not Dead Yet" state now grants the killer an Ultimate point and a signature-ability refresh.

Did any other weapons or Agents change in 13.09? Yes — the Warden had its pitch recoil smoothed with reduced second- and third-bullet spread error, Jett's passive was removed from the Buy Menu, and Riot added official "Haste" and "Snapshot" buff/debuff terms used across several Agents' abilities.

Is there a Patch 13.10 yet? Not as of this writing — Patch 13.09 remains the newest entry on Riot's official VALORANT patch notes page.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

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