Valorant's 9-3 Curse Is Real

Valorant has a curse, and it’s real: whoever you are, however you play, pro or casual, it’ll strike you all the same.

Even when you think you’ve already won, you will lose.

They call it the 9-3 curse: teams up 9-3 at the half somehow always manage to lose the game, despite their incredible lead.

So, why does it happen? Is 9-3 just not a big enough lead to seal the deal? And why do teams choke?

Production Assistance by: Nicolas Buck
Additional Animation by: Bennett Grainger (IG: @bennettgrainger)
Thumbnail by: Brandon Mistele

Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).

[kingofmagiccity]

can confirm, was getting clapped in the fist half. told my team all we needed was three, went into the half 3-9, told my team, "easy win, 9-3 curse" we proceeded to win in overtime

[oman]

I think the problem is a lot of teams will get complacent, thinking that there's no way someone could come back against such a huge deficit. Remember to stay disciplined on both halves yall, and convey that to ur team

[arturoacevedo]

I think 9-3 is a big enough lead for the winning team to become overconfident, and a small enough lead to lose it

[Girvo]

The 9-3 curse is most prevalent on Icebox, Haven and Split. Haven and icebox are massively attacker sided. Split is massively defender sided. This is pretty easily explained. The psychology stuff matters for sure, but the map balance matters more.

[anderswanlin]

It’s kinda like Zonic’s law in Csgo. 11-4 lead is a dangerous lead, because you can lose the lead so fast

[ShinjiFPS]

When you get the 9-3 curse, it feels like your body starts throwing

[skyedoesdacstuff]

Interestingly enough, it never happened to me. The curse only works when I play with my friend who is a believes the 9-3 curse is a real thing

[tkurisuu]

The 9-3 curse seems like a big one and let me explain my belief of 'why'. Having a lead of 6 can actually be lost VERY easily when you switch in the later half due to the constant switch of momentum at the beginning. Self consciously the winning team gets complacent or they start to feel some sort of frustration when they lose two rounds out of the first 3 round on the later half. At this point a ripple effect has occurred to your entire team. The team that was now losing seems to be giving you an intense amount of mental pressure since they've adapted to a way of play that you just can't counter because you're not capable in that moment and time to counter them. In the end it's mostly a mental deficit especially when you begin to somewhat believe it.

[SSGSteelTigers]

This shit happened to me on Fracture and we suddenly just started destroying the other team after the bottomfrag said "It's over, 9-3 curse" and he ended up topfragging with 32 kills

[royroy]

why is the computer scientist so fine.

[afterpasthours]

It’s about tempo and momentum, the way the economy shakes out makes sure that a win can quickly become a domino effect. The moment the half switches and the leading team holds that 9 round lead they may let their guard down and give the enemy team that one or two chances to swing the momentum of the entire game. That’s why if you want to win you have to steel your mental, the moment you stop trying to win or the sliver of doubt enters your mind you’ve already lost a significant portion of your ability even subconsciously.

[redatom]

"My gift and my curse"
- me when 9- 3 curse is happening in competive

[JoeyBabyKangaroo]

It always seemed to me that it was simply due to switching sides. That and you get a little more complacent when you're up 6 rounds.

[idkrossplay]

This is a real thing and there's actually a non psychological reason for it
First, maps like Breeze and Fracture are attacker sided whereas maps like Icebox and Split are defender sided. So winning 9-3 attack on Breeze is actually really common so that makes it easy to lose. Also team comp is very important, if your composition is better for attack than the enemy team (let's say your team has viper instead of KJ on bind), then your attack will be easy and defense will be hard, so either you will be down 3-9 on defense, or up 9-3 on attack. And 9-3 is easy to get when your team has an advantage because you're only winning 5 of those rounds, 4 of them are eco for the enemy team

[noabelding]

One time i was up 8-3 first half when my teammates decided to tactically throw against a light buy simply to avoid 9-3.

We still ended up losing but that’s besides the point 😅

[animeshshaw]

9-3 curse started in India during the time of ge vs vlt in nodwin VCC final to qualify APAC lcq in 2021

[leesoftpaw]

9-3 is a combo of that swap from defender to attacker (other way round for the enemies), some maps favor one side or the other and when a team down 6 round in the half manage to take the wind out of their opponent with a round or two, and ride that momentum... it can be a little easy to win a game you're down so much in

[nabieladrian]

Because 9-3 gives you so much room for error, that it becomes a false safety sense.

[Gothamz-gyku]

Can we get an actual statistic on the percentage of comebacks when there's a 9-3 lead? Just saying that it *happens* a lot doesn't mean that it is significant if it is still a low percentage.

[daddiedavis]

A 9-3 score line may be pretty cursed, but nothing is more cursed than the narrator’s hair.