Valorant Champions Tour Phase One is complete and one of the most interesting parts of the event was seeing who the strongest agents in Valorant are.
First Strike had a wide variety of agent compositions but it seems that North America’s top teams figured out which agents work best in the current meta and didn’t deviate from the formula very far. This left Omen as the unsurprising top choice throughout Phase One of the competition. The sneaky controller had a 90% overall pick rate and was chosen on all 33 maps played during Masters.
Sova has continued to be a favorite amongst top players. The arrow-wielding agent had an 84% pick rate thanks to many top players choosing the sharpshooter almost every time. This includes Sentinels’ Shahzeeb “ShahZaM” Khan, who has notoriously played an aggressive Sova for months. The reason Sova fell behind Omen was almost solely due to Split. Out of the 112 times that map was played, Sova was only picked once.
Jett was the third-most-picked agent in North America’s top competition. She boasted a 73% pick rate, making her the top duelist. Tyson “TenZ” Ngo and Andrej “babybay” Francisty in particular shined on Jett. At one point, TenZ even used Updraft to leap into the air and then released his Blade Storm to wipe out the enemy team.
Jett had an incredible 85% pick rate on Haven and 81% on Icebox, the map where TenZ had some of his most incredible moments. North America is known to use more duelists so it’s not surprising to see her aggressive moves all over these maps during the NA matches thus far.
Which Valorant agents were played the least in VCT NA?
Brimstone, Breach, Skye, Viper, and Yoru were the least-picked agents in North America. The top European teams during VCT Phase One also avoided these agents, except Viper who European teams often utilize on Icebox. In North America, none of these agents had a pick rate higher than 20% and none of them were picked at all during Masters except Breach.
The most concerning pattern? Yoru only had a pick rate of 1%. Even though Yoru was supposed to be a great choice for lurking duelists, many top players have found the agent underwhelming due to his lackluster kit. While Yoru was supposed to be sneaky and keep other agents on their toes, he’s unfortunately quite loud.
Riot developers have stated that buffs are incoming, including “revisiting some of the audio attenuations.” So far, nothing further has been revealed or discussed. Fans are hoping for a reduced ultimate cost and a quieter Gatecrash to make his teleportation viable.
