In tactical shooters like VALORANT, Economy management plays a major role. When your economy is running low, a common strategy is to execute what’s known as an “Eco round.” This article will explain what it is, how to play it, and more.
If you’ve just started playing VALORANT, a common term that you might hear getting tossed around is “Eco” or “Eco Round.” This might be confusing to players who just started out as well as players who are a few weeks into the game. But worry not, as we will explain in detail what an Eco round is while also touching upon other aspects surrounding how VALORANT’s credit system works.
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What is Eco Round?
A major aspect of tactical shooters like VALORANT is money management. Since this game requires you to purchase guns and abilities to use in the following round, having better equipment will always give you an advantage over your opponents in securing the round.
Since you need credits to purchase required weapons and abilities, when your team does not have enough credits is typically when you should have an Eco Round. Eco stands for Economic, which means you stabilize your economy by spending little to no credits in that round so that you have enough credits to buy the next round. This is also called a “Save Round.”
As the game progresses, you earn credits at the end of the round, depending on the round outcome and your performance. Getting a win grants the most credits, as well as getting kills and planting/defusing the spike grants bonus credits. When you lose a round, you still gain credits but at a reduced amount. This value increases for consecutive losses up to a maximum of three times.
In VALORANT, not only can you control your own team’s resources, but you can also control the opponent’s resources. The team that controls the economy dictates the outcome of the game. With proper communication and call-outs, you can control your own economy. Chasing down enemies that are saving their weapons or getting a lot of frags will force enemies to keep buying weapons which will severely handicap their economy. This way, you can gain the equipment advantage, which puts the odds in your favor to win the game.
How to play an Eco Round
Now that you know what an Eco Round is, let’s discuss how to play an Eco Round. Generally, the rule of thumb is to save as much credits as possible, but if your credit balance is higher compared to your team, you can purchase some equipment. An Eco Round aims to save up enough money to full-buy the next round. So if you can save around 4500 credits depending on what weapon/abilities you need to buy the next round, you can spend the remaining credits on the Eco round on a pistol or light armor.
Don’t buy anything expensive or even pistols if you aren’t confident that you can get kills with them. It is also a good idea not to use expensive abilities like Sova Drone, Omen flash, etc., as you need to purchase them again. This goes for ultimates as well because they will be better utilized in the full-buy round. However, ultimates such as Jett and Chamber’s are perfectly suited to be used exclusively in Eco rounds.
Remember that a good counter to weapon advantage is a numbers advantage. This is why it is a good idea to rush a site while you’re attacking on an Eco round and try to overwhelm the defense. If you’re lucky, you’ll get trade kills and be able to pick up the enemy guns. This will set you up to fight the enemies rotating from the other site, and with proper aim, you can successfully clinch the Eco round. This strategy does not need to be limited to the attacking site because you can still stack a site or push out while on defense.
The Eco Round mindset
Always remember it’s perfectly fine to lose an Eco round. Since the enemy will have better gear while your team will have little to no gear, that is the predicted outcome. Your mindset should be to inflict as much damage as possible with minimal credit investment.
The primary goal of an Eco round is to save credits to buy proper equipment for the next round. Any kills you get will be an added bonus because not only does this deal huge damage to the enemy’s economy as they have to purchase their guns again, but it also allows you to pick up that enemy’s gun and try to get more kills or save it for the next round. With proper skill, team play, and a little bit of luck, you can even win out an eco round and earn the round end title of “Thrifty.”
So, in conclusion, always take care to manage your economy in the game, coordinate your buy rounds with the team as well as execute Eco Rounds when your team’s credits are running low.
