Whenever five players express that they are online and ready to play, a game may occur. There is no set schedule for these games - they happen when they happen. Thus, there is variance in the time of day at which matches are played.

Two main questions follow from this fact. First, when are games usually played? Is it completely random (unlikely), or is there some pattern? Second, does this have any effect on the team's performance? Research suggests that "human performance efficiency changes as a function of time of day." How does this apply to the team's Valorant matches?

Note: the time associated with a game is the time at which the game started. All times are in Central Standard Time.

We can get a broader overview through categorization. These classifications are a bit arbitrary, partially because I tried to have a high volume of games in each category while still being intuitive. The categories are Pre-Night (12 PM to 8 PM), Early Night (8 PM to 12 AM), and Late Night (12 AM to 4 AM).

At the time of this writing, there is a clear pattern of subpar performance after midnight for the team.

Finally, let's wrap things up by aggregating each player's individual performance by time of day classification.

It's worth mentioning that while the match start times are listed in the Central Standard Time, not all of these players live in this time zone. A game that occurs prior to midnight for some players may be occurring after midnight for others.