BRAT comp is crazy

Gekko Omen Astra Tejo + duelist of choice

icy, y0y, tuyz, raafa, melser, flor

And that timer is long enough to kill every affected ult except Chamber and Jett lol

Pretty sure that drone can be destroyed

It's actually so cool because he doesn't replace Sova/Fade, but just brings that half-recon in the form of a drone, which perfectly complements the soft info of Gekko and Skye.

So now we might see Tejo/Gekko, Tejo/Skye, maybe even Tejo/Kayo, which are all double ini comps that bias toward punishes rather than info (finally).

Tejo will never be run solo initiator. That's like running solo Kayo.

The whole point of initiators is that they have enough utility to challenge multiple points of contact throughout the round. Solo Tejo would have to save almost all of it for site hits/retakes.

Nah START hating on the 2025 VCT capsules

The thing is, he will probably never be run alongside Breach. His one drone isn't enough scouting to replace a full recon initiator. It might be enough to pair with soft info from Skye and Gekko though.

edit: nevermind you're probably talking about ranked, then yeah anything goes

Happens literally every time a new agent comes out and most of them since 2023 are dogshit on release

There's only the one missile "cast," and you choose whether to send one or two at the same time.

You do know a Kayo knife can stop Raze and Sova and Gekko and Chamber ults right

Never. That's what map bans are for.

Imagine teams having to prepare for playing Icebox without Viper or Sova or Jett or whatever else. The preparation would be prohibitively time-consuming.

Again, the downside is that he only has three ability casts. There's no role compression happening because he can't kayo knife early for info, he can't hold a stun for contact, he can't drone lobby while still having a dart for site, etc.

His abilities are only good for focused, explosive space-taking, which burns out very quickly. If you run solo Tejo, the enemy team will have a very easy time just poking forward and baiting your util out.

The downside is he only has three ability casts, since both rockets are cast at once with a 45 second cooldown.

If drone gets broken, all he has left is a worse neon stun and the rockets. It's still good, but overall pretty comparable to what Breach and Kayo bring if you look at the whole round

Imagine what your comp would look like to run Tejo/Deadlock though.

His util volume is so low you probably need a second initiator, so then you just have smokes and a duelist and no trip senti or secondary controller. It's heavy investment for those trap plays.

I think they lost their sauce cuz they were running more normal comps at champs 😔

fr0st

No Astra or Harbor??? Fake fan

heat sucked ass at initiator tho

adverso doesn't need to be anything other than a decent IGL when the other four are shooters

How is mta to Mazino a downgrade

Also you'll eat your words when Furia gets a trophy this year watch

The only top teams of 2024 that kept their cores are EDG and Heretics. Any other teams that ppl say look good are just from off-season results. We don't really know anything, which makes VCT 2025 exciting

Taiwan, Ecuador, Spain, southern Mexico

He still needs another buff lol I'd wanna see his abilities give him overheal and/or stim.

Or do the funny and batshit thing Anderzz suggested and make his ult his signature but he only has 1 hp in it

Evil Geniuses but don't be shocked if I have FUR or 2G now

Read that again. She can't bypass senti utility as easily as the above two, and that's a big reason why she wasn't picked as much on Ascent and Bind, where enemies can still just hold for enemies swinging out and not an enemy literally flying behind them.

This is not to say she was worse. She had substantially better ability to close the gap on detected or debuffed enemies before they can escape, which helped her on more long-winded maps like Sunset and Haven.

This is going way off-topic from your original point. Yoru is not dive, and he does not entirely replace Jett/Raze in their same role. When he is picked in pro, it's for extra flash and lurk support, not because he is a direct alternative to dive entry.

She did not need this hard of a nerf though

Frankly what's more irritating is how often the team is double senti and we still go like 4-8 on defense

I genuinely think I have <50% defense round winrate with double senti comps

You're really overestimating how much the average diamond player knows about multiple agents. Swapping between their play styles is also challenging in and of itself.

I don't think OP is saying that ppl shouldn't play multiple agents if they truly are comfortable with it, just that if you are only comfortable on Jett/Raze then just play Jett/Raze and don't be peer pressured into locking KJ or some shit

Yes

I mean, yeah. There's reasons she didn't replace Jett on Ascent or Raze on Bind, and a big one is because she can't bypass utility/crossfires like those two can. She's psuedo-dive.

But you can get a rough idea of it based on how much RR you're gaining/losing.

For example, if on close games where you have barely positive KD you're gaining +20 and losing -12, then you have MMR higher than your current rank (meaning the game thinks you belong higher). Likewise, if you're losing more than you're gaining from similar scorelines, the game thinks you're underperforming for your rank.

Rank resets usually drop your rank below your MMR to prevent rank inflation while making it easier to get back to where you were.

I faced a cracked Jett once and then got him on my team the next game. He wanted to fill Cypher but I bullied him into locking Jett again. Sure enough he carried our asses and then asked himself why he plays senti at all

Exquisite taste

Trust I am one of NRG's biggest haters but I'm not gonna deny they looked good in the SOOP grand finals or whatever it was

They looked very clean in the off-season tournaments but yeah we never know how that translates to VCT proper. Historically, it's pretty poor for NRG.

The problem is that even a clone + flash + TP combo won't always tell you if there's someone sitting right outside the choke with a shotgun, or if there's a deep turret that an enemy might be swinging off of, or if there's a flashed enemy who just backed up into CT about to use counter utility, etc.

This supplemental "eyes and ears" is critical to why dive duelists are utilized in the vast majority of pro comps.

If you're only thinking about the reward and you don't enjoy the act of playing for it, then yes you've lost passion for the game and should find something else to do.

Movement =/= dive, which is the more relevant classification.

The strength of dive duelists lies in the fact that they can both bypass senti utility and give visual info on the area they're bypassing. Also that they can close the gap on an enemy who is stunned/flashed/whatever to secure the kill before they escape. Yoru can only do the bypassing part.

His ability to lurk and regroup with TPs, and his ability to flash + TP into dangerous positions, puts him more in line with a supportive duelist or pseudo-initiator. It's kinda like how Phoenix provides extra flashes and area control or how Iso provides more teamfight power. But none of these three agents fill the same dive role that Jett/Raze do on site executes. That's what we look at when creating comps, not the existence of movement abilities in general.

Join a premier team

I feel like he's rated fairly. Most people here act like he's the only good player on Loud

Oh ALSO I'd be willing to bet the Harbor rework will make him the pure midrange controller he was always meant to be. Just a shit ton of refreshing walls designed to make enemies waste utility. All he needs is more flexible range, really.

Wait this is crazy. His three agent predictions of control-midrange senti, midrange-aggro controller, and midrange-aggro duelist fit almost perfectly with Vyse, Clove, and Iso.

It seems like Valorant has difficulty with creating viable, balanced midrange archetypes. Refreshing utility is inherently hard not to make overpowered in a tac shooter. It's either the utility is just too strong for how much of it you get (Skye) or it's too situational to get value throughout a round (Vyse).

Feels like the only true midrange agent is Gekko, which is maybe why Gekko comps feel so fresh. Much to think about.

Whenever the enemy has a Yoru I usually just stare into a corner blair witch style and turn around after they're done throwing util at nothing

EG, FUR, 2G, M8, APK, EDG for this year

KRÜ, LOUD, and FPX if they get their shit together

LEV if the vibes are there

Did Riot confirm either way or are we just assuming since it's not been announced

I think you're jumping to conclusions here. I have been guessing for a while that the next initiator could have some kind of "see through walls" gimmick but I mean people thought Deadlock was gonna be OP when her abilities first leaked. We can't know for sure until we see gameplay.

Oh I see what you mean. Yeah I don't know. We'll see if that's actually what happens though

I mean, teams need time to prepare for any changes to the meta.

I guess it would've been better to release the agent a month ago so they're available by kickoff but the holidays probably aren't a good time for it either.

I mean yeah Viper is kinda her own thing. The way I see it, Astra is that middle ground between lurk threat and exec support, kinda like Skye is a flash initiator but also has a drone. Controllers are weird.

Is the new agent releasing start of episode 10 next week? So many articles are saying that but I don't see official confirmation from Riot