Valorant
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Valorant Champions Tour starts today, here are the teams to watch
Nina Forneloza
The stage is set for the NA Valorant Champions Tour with 128 teams fighting for their chance at the first global Valorant tournament later this year. So what teams should fans keep their eyes on? Below are just a few of the teams competing in the NA Challengers Series, which takes place from January 27 to March 7. The Sentinels had an unfortunate run in the First Strike Grand Final …
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Evil Geniuses announces its new Valorant roster for Challengers
Nicholas James
One of the oldest organizations in esports, Evil Geniuses, has announced a new Valorant roster that will compete in the first Challengers tournament. The announcement was teased earlier in the day in a cryptic tweet that implied big news was coming soon. pic.twitter.com/ETmbduMKIH — Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) January 27, 2021 The team will make its debut at the event and is the first time that many of its members will …
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Valorant player ReFleck banned for hacking on live stream
Fariha Bhatti
Aspiring Valorant professional player ReFleck was recently caught cheating on the live stream in a match against Dignitas’ all-female roster. As if Valorant bans are already not severe enough, ReFleck had to bear the embarrassment of receiving one on a live broadcast. Consequently, the player has removed himself from the internet. Dignitas’ Juliana “showliana” Maransaldi shared the “hacker detected” screenshot on Twitter, followed by the original clip from a private …
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Furia, Vorax among the favorite teams in Brazil Challengers
Nicholas James
The South American region is kicking off its regional Challengers tournament a few days earlier than the rest of the world. The Brazillian leg is now in the closed qualifiers stage, finishing up the online open qualifiers with a few upsets. All of the top four teams in the Brazillian First Strike event were upset in the open qualifiers and will not be defending their titles at the event. Gamelanders …
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This Killjoy nanoswarm lineup always helps clear Ascent’s B site
Fariha Bhatti
Riot’s addition of Yoru in Valorant Episode 2 may have facilitated the five-duelist lobby nightmare. But a Sentinel as deadly as Killjoy still proves that picking her is key to bagging a win in Valorant. A tough fight becomes easier when the enemy team has Killjoy on a map filled with tight corners. Her toolkit is unforgiving on the defender’s side due to her ability to impede fast pushes. However, …
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This major Sova exploit can arrow open Bind’s teleporter doors
M Alzamora
Players have found a new exploit that lets Sova’s arrows travel outside the map before bouncing back in bounds and triggering the map’s teleporter doors. Sova is often overlooked when Valorant players choose an agent thanks to two key weaknesses. First, his arrows are easily destroyed by enemy players, often before they have time to reveal enemy positions. Second, there’s no way for players to guarantee that their arrows won’t …
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This game-breaking bug lets Omen use his ultimate infinitely
Olivia Richman
Valorant’s most recent patch introduced a very concerning bug that makes Omen wildly overpowered. Even moreso than usual. The exploit allows players to cancel and then reuse Omen’s ultimate ability, From the Shadows, repeatedly. As one can imagine, the ability to use infinite teleports with no cooldown is completely game-breaking. This continues an unfortunate trend with something game-breaking being discovered with Omen, who already stood as the best agent in …
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Valorant rewards player for dealing 10 million damage to damage range bot
Olivia Richman
A Valorant record has seemingly been broken. The Reddit user shared a video of themself dealing 10 million damage to a damage firing range bot, breaking the previous record for this impressive yet tedious task. After hitting 10 million, the player was automatically kicked from the server, prompting other fans to joke that the game was concerned over the sanity of someone who would attempt such a feat. The player …
Riot addresses problems with chat and voice bans in Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant developers have finally addressed a growing outcry from players who don’t want to play competitive matches with other players who have been banned from chat and voice in-game. Senior producer Ian “Brighteyz” Fielding told the Valorant community that players with chat and voice restrictions would no longer be allowed to play ranked matches within the next two or three patches. Brighteyz said that developers were currently working on the …
Sage can solo hold bomb sites with this Barrier Orb boost trick
Fariha Bhatti
News
Valorant’s Sage is usually considered a support agent who can’t handle a site independently. However, her Barrier Orb could make her a viable site anchor with some strong aim. When attackers look to bulldoze one site, Split’s A site for example, it’s a general tactic to stack the site in response and leave a single self-sufficient agent on B to solo-hold the site. In such situations, Sage is rarely ever …
Killjoy can secretly place nanoswarm inside Split’s bomb boxes
Fariha Bhatti
News
Valorant’s Killjoy is possibly the deadliest agent in Split’s B site. A new find shows that her nanoswarm ability alone is enough to keep enemies at bay. Split’s B site may be tough to crack open for attackers due to an enclosed entrance and a tight middle area. However, it’s the easiest to field post-plant. With the right utility, agents can use the site’s corners to confuse their enemies attempting …
Prism II, Horizon skin bundles leaked in-game, now available
Nicholas James
News
New Valorant skin bundles Prism II and Horizon were leaked on the Valorant store and by established Valorant leakers. These skin bundles are now available to purchase on in the in-game store. Each bundle has five guns that the cosmetic will be available to purchase for, with no new animations, customizable effects, or melee weapons attached to either bundle. The Horizon skin line is going to be available to purchase …
Cloud9 Blue signs young CSGO pro leaf to its Valorant roster
Olivia Richman
News
The winds of change are blowing for Cloud9’s Valorant team. Cloud9 Blue is welcoming Nathan “leaf” Orf to their Valorant roster. The skilled FPS player was a stand-in on the team for three different tournaments, but now he’s officially part of the main squad. “I’d probably like to be one of the top players in the game. I definitely think I have the capabilities to be so,” leaf said in …
koosta officially leaves CSGO to join Gen.G Valorant team
Nina Forneloza
News
Kenneth “koosta” Suen is moving from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Valorant, Gen.G has announced. Koosta is the fifth member to join the Gen.G Valorant team, and this move completes Gen.G’s Valorant roster ahead of the Valorant Champion’s Tour. He replaces Kevin “PLAYER1” Champagne. Fans quickly took to Twitter to express their support, though a few also expressed disappointment to see the player departing CSGO. Koosta entered the CSGO scene in …
Valorant pro Hiko complains about “trash” ranked system
Fariha Bhatti
News
Riot Games’ Episode 2 tweaks to Valorant;s ranked game mode has ruffled a few feathers as stressed out players complain about the “trash” ranking system. Valorant’s new update introduced major changes to the game in the form of a ranked system that overhauled how players stack up against each other. While most players lauded the developer’s effort to make the shooter more competitive, professional players have their reservations. In a …
This is how to fix the Valorant version mismatch error
Nina Forneloza
News
Valorant has been experiencing a number of errors lately, but some players have encountered the mismatch error most frequently. It can be a real pain to deal with, but solving the issue is possible, and this is how. Fixing the issue is actually simple. Players need to close out of the game and restart the client. This will prompt players to download the latest version of the game, and that …
Valorant patch 2.01 nerfs Jett, brings big changes to Split
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant has pushed out another update as developers have taken the game’s mascot down a peg. Patch 2.01 has a short list of changes but brought some major changes to the tactical shooter. Jett’s smokes were buffed a while ago, but Riot Games is rolling back those gains in a way that should see Jett’s versatility reduced The other big change is to Split, which has been updated to give …
Valorant pro Steel reveals how to rank up quicker in Valorant
Fariha Bhatti
News
100 Thieves in-game leader Joshua “steel” Nissan has revealed the secret tip that helped them win Valorant: First Strike. To carry out this trick, all players need is a microphone. Taking to Twitter, the Canadian pro stressed on the importance of using voice chat in-game. Iron to Radiant in 15 minsHow we won first strikeThe #1 Pro Tip that RITO does NOT want you to know pic.twitter.com/cxw0AbYYAH — 100T steel …
WSOE Valorant tournament participants and schedule are set
Nicholas James
News
The World Showdown of Esports, an esports tournament organizer, is kicking off its entrance into Valorant with a $10,000 online tournament. Attention Agents//Join us on January 26th for #WSOE Online V: @PlayVALORANT! Want a shot at the $10K prize pool? Open qualifiers begin on January 18th!????Register here: https://t.co/aSY4nkbJro????More info: https://t.co/Cw3YDAlouV pic.twitter.com/hSAaje92cz — WSOE (@WSOE) January 7, 2021 The tournament has an online open qualifier with a double-elimination bracket. All matches …
Giants Gaming signs Prodigy Orgless and former FPX player Meddo
Nicholas James
News
Giants Gaming has signed a full European roster ahead of the Valorant Champions Tour, starting in less than a month’s time. The team consists of four players from the Prodigy-represented squad Orgless as well as former FunPlus Phoenix player Johan “Meddo” Renbjörk Lundborg. The players from Orgless that are joining include Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer, Daniil “pipsoN” Mesheryakov, Aaro “hoody” Peltokangas, and Ričardas “Boo” Lukaševičius. The only player not joining from …
Riot Games has long looked to expand its footprint beyond the success of popular MOBA League of Legends, and one of its biggest successes to date in this regard is the tactical shooter, Valorant. Blending traditional first-person shooter elements with unique and flashy hero abilities, Valorant seeks to combine the best attributes of tactical shooters and hero shooters into one cohesive experience.
Based on player feedback, the game has largely succeeded in accomplishing those aims. It’s not an easy balance, and it’s one that is arguably still tenuous, but Riot Games seems to be doing as good a job of it as most fans have hoped for.
What type of game is Valorant?
Valorant is a first-person shooter that represents a unique blend of the tactical shooter and hero shooter subgenres. There are some games that represent similar gameplay elements, but not many that offer the exact experience that Valorant puts forward to players.
The tactical shooter genre is often considered to have been defined by the release of the original Counter-Strike, a multiplayer mod for famed single-player PC title Half-Life that later became a standalone game of its own. While most multiplayer FPS games to that point emphasized prolonged battles between opposing players zipping around the game at high speeds, Counter-Strike slowed things down significantly and made players much more susceptible to each other’s firepower, requiring players to take a more tactical approach to play.
That slower and more tactical approach, combined with the lightning-quick nature of action when it does occur, proved reliably popular. That popularity can still be seen today with the ongoing success enjoyed by the Counter-Strike franchise, and it’s this gameplay type that represents the core of Valorant. It’s no accident that former Counter-Strike developers were drafted by Riot Games to help create Valorant during the game’s formative stages.
What differentiates Valorant from CS and other tactical shooters it that each of the game’s characters, called agents, wield a number of unique abilities. Some are typical for tactical shooters, like flashbangs and smokes, while others are wildly different, such as an ability that transports two players to an isolated dueling arena for its duration.
These agent abilities are more reminiscent of hero shooters, a subgenre that arguably got its start with the Team Fortress games but has best been popularized by Blizzard title Overwatch. The abilities, combind with the tactical considerations that are at the core of Valorant, separate it from most any other FPS experience available for play.
How does Valorant esports work?
Like many other popular competitive shooters, Valorant does have a thriving esports scene. That scene is differentiated by the way it’s run and controlled by developer and publisher Riot Games. Riot uses a model based on the success of its League of Legends esports scene, which sees the globe’s competitive players and team’s separated by region. These regions play out their own competitions in their sections of the world before coming together at regular intervals for international tournaments featuring the best teams from each individual region.
While League of Legends once boasted a variety of regions and regional types, Riot sought to simplify that model when setting up esports for Valorant. The game has only a handful of major regions, and these regions are held as largely equitable, each sending their best teams to international events leading up to the year-end VALORANT Champions event.
