Raze among the highest picked agents in VCT Challengers 3, Jett places fourth

Fariha Bhatti Published 11/03/2021

Eight teams have qualified for Valorant Champions Tour Europe Masters One, and these teams heavily utilized Omen, Sova, and Raze to secure a spot in Valorant’s biggest event to date.

In high elo games, Reyna or Jett are statistically the best agents that players love to play. Duelists are often preferred for their belligerent powers and abilities that can annihilate enemies in seconds. However, in team games, agent lineups vary monumentally. Agent pick rate from challengers 3 event testifies.

Valorant Champions Tour’s challengers series were chopped into a series of three. In Challengers 3, Raze emerged on top, surpassing Jett as the most picked duelist by pros. According to Vlr.gg, Raze’s pick rate was 5% more than that of Jett. Most players fancied Raze’s destructive toolkit on most maps over Jett’s razor-sharp abilities. Jett’s highest pick rate came in map icebox, where she was played 92% of the times.

While the pick disparity between the two duelists isn’t that high, it’s the winning team’s choice of agents that show that Raze was dominating throughout Challengers 3. In VCT Europe Masters One, eight teams have qualified, including Ninjas in Pyjamas, FunPlus Pheonix, Ballista, and Acend (former Raise your edge). A quick overview reveals that all qualified teams were heavily in favor of playing Raze, with Jett making an appearance on select maps like Icebox and Ascent.

Some teams like Ballista and Defuse were juggling between both the agents, but Raze remained their primary pick. The agent was most viable on Bind and Split, where teams chose her 84% of the times, whereas Jett’s rate was under 55% on both maps.

Omen and Sova among most-played agents in VCT Challengers 3

Unsurprisingly, Omen and Sova retained their spots as most played agents in VCT Challengers 3. The agents were the top two picks before and managed to hold on to their ranks in final part of series. The controller and initiator were picked across most maps to gather intel and support the duelists, bringing them to the top of the board. Omen and Sova had remained to be a deadly duo that teams opt for since Valorant First Strike.

Despite being a favorite agent in both low and high ranked lobbies, Reyna has yet a long way to go to make it to the prime scene in pro games. The agent experienced only 9% picks in VCT Challengers 3, not much different from First Strike Europe, where she was selected 16% of the time, defeated by the likes of Breach, Cypher, and Raze.

It’ll be interesting to see how the pick rate pans out in Masters One, with some teams entering as underdogs and a unique play style. The qualified teams will enter the bigger battleground on March 12 to decide who’s the best in Europe at VCT Masters One.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

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