The Actual Roles on Pro Teams

#1

So obviously there's 4 roles in Valorant and then teams will usually have a 5th to plug gaps, but I feel like it's never usually that simple with what roles players will be playing in a team, so I thought I'd try and make a list of all the common player archetypes I've seen in VCT

Pure Duelist Players i.e zekken, Derke, aspas, MiniBoo, t3xture

Pure Sentinel Players i.e nAts, Less, benjyfishy
Will typically also play a lot of Viper or sometimes Omen or Astra

Pure Initiator Players i.e RieNs, trent, Leo, cauanzin

Pure Controller Players i.e Karon, MaKo, bang

Aggro Flex Players i.e Victor, zyppan, 2022 zekken, Wo0t
Kind of a product of the Chamber meta and a bit dated but players who will typically play aggressive flash initiator and hard entry roles like Raze and Neon

Passive Aim Demons i.e Demon1, Cryo, yay
Will always be put on the role that allows them to take isolated ones from passive positions, tend towards flexing Iso, Jett, Chamber and Controller, usually pick up the Op a lot

Senti Duelist Flex i.e Alfajer, Meteor, 2024 Kai
Players who are more aggressive than typical sentinels but less aggressive than a typical entry player, usually moved onto Iso and Jett when not on senti

Controller Entry Players i.e Keiko, 2023 Jawgemo, 2024 TenZ, modern cNed
Hyper aggressive players who are put on basically perma Omen duties whilst flexing some Duelist, basically a second entry player on smokes

Hard Support/Gap Filler i.e JonahP, paTiTek, Chronicle, Ethan
Players who are basically always put into support positions to enable other players to frag, tend to play a lot of Viper or second sentinel depending on what their team wants

f0rsakeN f0rsakeN
Plays literally anything

Anything I missed?

#2

Raize1

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Those are more roles+ player types

Your roles would be

Duelist
Flex
Sentinel
Flashes
Smokes
Recon/Scan Inits

#4

my-dad-ate-my-toes

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Idk I feel like you can't really describe some players with just one role, like idk which of those 5 you'd classify Demon1, Keiko, Alfajer etc as

#6

Raize1

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The way I like to do it when doing roster threads in general is attach two roles to a player, so in Keiko's case it would be his main role Smokes followed by flex considering he plays that secondary duelist but also other roles as well. If I used TL as an example:

Keiko (Smokes/Flex)
Nats (Sentinel [IGL])
Kamo (Duelist)
Patitek (Flashes/Flex)
Trexx (Recon)

If that makes sense. It just works itself out in my brain

#7

my-dad-ate-my-toes

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Idk I just think it's generally more useful to think about what specific positions a player is gonna play on their team beyond just doing the standard for the agent their playing

For example, Cryo and Keiko are both flexing duelist and smokes but in such radically different ways I don't think you can say they fill the same position in a team

#3

fungame024

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FengF was also a Senti duelist flex in 2024 I think

#5

FrogGrenade

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I dont know if this counts but similar to gap filler is IGL flex support. Valyn for example sticks to controller while FNS and JohnQT will flex

#8

my-dad-ate-my-toes

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I think that just falls under the passive flex type player

I was considering making a supportive smokes role for players like Boaster and Boo who tend to avoid lurking and isolating ones and usually play fast rotate rather than hard anchoring tho

#9

natalie

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LMAO not f0rsakeN having his own role but also kinda real bro plays anything