Valorant
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Nerfs to Sage and Cypher, Killjoy counters discussed by Valorant dev
Olivia Richman
Valorant character design lead Ryan “Morello” Scott went on Twitch yesterday to answer fan questions. One agent on everyone’s mind was Cypher, who had a 92% pick rate at a recent tournament and continues to be ranked S-tier. One fan asked Morello if anything would be done about Cypher after such a strong showing at the PAX Arena Invitational. “We’re going to have to do something. We’ve been backed up …
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CSGO streamer Anomaly joins Luminosity Gaming as Valorant influencer
Jared Wynne
Famous Swedish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive streamer Ludwig “Anomaly” Lagerstedt has revealed that he has joined North American organization Luminosity Gaming. The streamer, well known for his bombastic style and goofy persona will be joining the roster as a content creator. Best known for his CSGO content on both Youtube and Twitch, the Swedish gamer has expanded into Valorant as of late, becoming one of the game’s most viewed streamers. Despite …
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Big ranked matchmaking changes coming to Valorant in Act 2
gabhernandez
With Valorant’s Act 1 being brought to a close, Riot has released details on incoming changes to Valorant’s ranks and competitive mode for Act 2. Currently, matchmaking is heavily weighted by skill level and moves fluidly based on a good or bad day of competitive play. Riot developers have expressed interest in top-ranked players having an incentive to keep playing the game that doesn’t include simply playing so they don’t …
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Valorant reveals 12th agent Killjoy, confirms release date
Olivia Richman
Equipped with a bunch of adorable and deadly robots, Killjoy has been officially revealed by Valorant developers. Riot Games had accidentally leaked Killjoy a few days ago, giving fans insight into the 12th agent’s abilities. It was clear that she would be a defensive agent with abilities focused on deployable machines. One bot attacks enemies, dealing damage and lowering their defenses to damage from enemy agents. She also has Nanostorm, …
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Valorant patch 1.04 makes playing Viper easier, nerfs Brimstone
gabhernandez
Valorant released its 1.04 patch notes, bringing buffs, nerfs, ult changes, and bug fixes to the game. The biggest change in the patch notes is for Viper, who got a significant buff to Viper’s Pit. The time she is allowed out of her ult before it collapses has been changed to 15 seconds. Alongside this change, enemies inside Viper’s Pit no longer transmit enemy locations to allies on the minimap, …
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Valorant pros leave indefinitely after cheating in charity event
Olivia Richman
Two Valorant pros have decided to leave the competitive scene indefinitely after Riot Games banned them for cheating. phox and w3ak finished in third place in the Nerd St. Gamers Open tournament while playing for team A.S.M.R. It was a good start to a promising career and they were soon on their way to compete with Echo 8 at the PAX Arena Invitational. But that plan was thwarted when the …
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gob b unretires, returns to BIG as new Valorant captain
Jared Wynne
German organization BIG Clan has announced its plans to branch out into Riot Games’ tactical shooter, Valorant. Its new team is centered around Counter Strike: Global Offensive veteran Fatih “gob b” Dayik, who retired from the game in 2019. “As you know, I have been playing a lot of Valorant lately. It surprised me how much I am enjoying it, so I decided to play it in a competitive fashion,” …
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Riot developer criticizes Valorant knives, admits they’re bad
Olivia Richman
A Riot Games developer has admitted that the knives in Valorant are currently “shitty.” In a tweet, lead character designer Ryan “Morello” Scott responded to a player’s concern over the state of melee in Valorant. The gameplay clip they posted showed him wielding the knife and stabbing at an opponent multiple times to no avail. “Knife is basically really shitty right now. Something we definitely want to fix,” Morello tweeted …
Cloud9 continues building Valorant roster by signing mitch
Jared Wynne
News
Cloud9 is gradually completing its Valorant roster, now signing the third member of its roster. Former Counter Strike: Global Offensive pro Mitch “mitch” Semago is the latest addition to the team, joining Tyson “TenZ” Ngo and Skyler “Relyks” Weaver in the active lineup. Although his time with the organization just became official, Mitch has competed with Cloud9 since May as a stand-in. Together with the team he has achieved a …
Ninjas in Pyjamas completes new Valorant esports roster
gabhernandez
News
Ninjas in Pyjamas, the Swedish esports organization best known for its legendary Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division, has revealed its new Valorant roster. After signing Emir “RHYME” Muminovic, and Niels “luckeRRR” Jasiek in June, the organization completed its lineup by signing Charles “CREA” Beauvois, Damiel “HyP” Souville, and Enzo “Fearoth” Mestari, who will serve as captain. The newly signed trio had been competing in Valorant as HypHypHyp. .@PlayVALORANT Roster Update???????? @Creativ_B???????? …
Team Envy enters Valorant by signing together we are terrific
Jared Wynne
News
Team Envy is the latest organization to join Valorant’s ever-expanding competitive scene. The North American team has picked up the roster of the team that has been competing as “together we are terrific.” Together we are terrific is a mix of former professional and semi-professional Counter Strike: Global Offensive players, and was regarded by many as the best sponsorless team in North America. Two of the biggest names on the …
Team Liquid reportedly sign fish123, ScreaM to Valorant roster
Olivia Richman
News
As the competitive Valorant scene continues to take shape, many fans have been wondering if Team Liquid was going to join the fray before the Ignition Series started to heat up. According to French website1pv.fr, Team Liquid has finally decided how to join the top organizations in Valorant esports. They are allegedly signing veteran Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and four players from unsigned team fish123. If this …
Valorant data leak reveals new agent Killjoy, game modes, skins
Olivia Richman
News
It was only a matter of time before someone data mined Valorant. And the results of this latest break have been massive. Valorant Express decided to dig through the game’s files after the latest patch and emerged with a lot of potentially juicy leaks, including a new agent, new game mode, new weapon skin, and some potential quality of life updates. “New audio for the upcoming agent Killjoy has been …
These are the top Valorant esports teams in North America
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant has just hit the professional esports scene and teams are already paying big money for the game’s best players. The Esports Observer recently shared that the average salary for Valorant teams with five players can range from $15,000 to $25,000 per month. That means there are some players already earning $60,000 a year from contract payments alone. The sources that shared the information with Esports Observer also hinted that …
WePlay! Esports $50,000 Valorant Invitational tournament for EU teams
Olivia Richman
News
Top Valorant teams will be competing for their share of a $50,000 prize pool in a tournament hosted by WePlay! on July 13. The open qualifiers for the WePlay! Valorant Invitational tournament will feature 128 teams. These teams will compete in best-of-one matches until the final series in each bracket, which will be contested in a best-of-three format. The teams who come out on top of both brackets will move …
Valorant Elderflame skin line revealed, puts CSGO skins to shame
Steven Rondina
News
Valorant skins are looking a whole lot cooler than those of first-person shooter rival Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Riot Games has unveiled the first set of its Ultra Edition skins. The Elderflame series includes redesigned options for several guns and goes a few steps beyond simply brightening them up or adding new patterns. As revealed in a teaser trailer for its launch, the Elderflame series turns each of the weapons into …
Valorant patch 1.03 adds surrender options, buffs Guardian
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant developers have dropped the 1.03 patch notes after successfully implementing ranked mode into Riot’s new first-person shooter. As the game’s ranked queue continues to stabilize, developers have decided to focus on some balance changes this time around to “let the meta evolve naturally.” This included some big updates to the Guardian weapon and the addition of surrender options to both unranked and ranked play. Communications associate Jeff Landa wrote …
Valorant developers warn that another ban wave is coming soon
Olivia Richman
News
Valorant’s developers have not lightened up when it comes to their stance on hackers and cheaters. Game director Joe “Hephastopheles” Ziegler recently took to Twitter to warn wrongdoers that a ban may be coming their way in the near future. “Our platform team has put in a new system that will be going live soon that will inform players if they have been banned and for what reason,” Ziegler said. …
100 Thieves’ Hiko shares new agent tier list for Valorant
Olivia Richman
News
100 Thieves Valorant captain Spencer “Hiko” Martin decided to share his insight on each of the game’s agents during a recent stream. “We’re not talking about comp, we’re not talking about solo queue rated, we’re not talking about unrated, we’re not talking about fun level. We’re talking about usefulness in high-level team-based pro gameplay,” Hiko explained. Hiko put Sage in S-tier right away. He stated that she’s the “best agent …
Haven removed from Valorant competitive queue due to Reyna bug
Olivia Richman
News
Riot Games has removed Haven from Valorant’s competitive queue map pool after finding a game-breaking exploit. Valorant tweeted that Haven will return to the rotation as soon as the developer is “confident it’s fixed.” We were made aware of an exploit on Haven and disabled it in the competitive queue while we ship a fix overnight. It’ll come back into the rotation as soon as we’re confident it’s fixed. — …
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.
