Popular VALORANT Agents are MIA from VCT Masters Tokyo
A significant chunk of VALORANT's Agent cast has not seen action at the highest level of play during VCT Masters Tokyo 2023. Is that a problem?
23rd Jun 2023 17:25
Riot Games
Popular VALORANT Agents are MIA from VCT Masters Tokyo
A significant chunk of VALORANT's Agent cast has not seen action at the highest level of play during VCT Masters Tokyo 2023. Is that a problem?
23rd Jun 2023 17:25
Riot Games
The VALORANT Championship Tour and its stop for its Masters event in Tokyo is on its homestretch with only the lower bracket final and grand final to be played.
Lasting over two weeks and with dozens of maps played at the highest, the tournament may be seen as the best representation of the game's balance in pro play.
As the statistics show, the developer and balance team have their work cut out for them. Six of the 21 VALORANT Agents only showed a less than 10% play rate. Worse yet, two of the Agents were entirely absent.
Reyna and Yoru, where are you?
According to the community and VALORANT statistics website vlr.gg, both Yoru and Renya were not played a single time during the 54 recorded maps of the tournament.
For both Agents, it's another dry spell after not putting any meaningful numbers on the board during LOCK//IN São Paulo in March of this year and not even VALORANT Champions 2022 in September of last.
Other Agents like Gekko, Phoenix, Sage, and Chamber were also not played much, though for most of them, it's an arguably healthy timeout in the limelight of the highest level of VALORANT.
Notably, there's a stark imbalance among Duelist Agents. It doesn't appear to be the case that the role in itself has a problem. After all, Agents like Jett and Raze are among the most played and are practically found in every match.
What appears to be the problem?
It stands to reason that Jett and Raze's strengths aren't the only problem, as it's likely that neither Reyna, Yoru, nor Phoenix would find a place in the meta if the aforementioned two were to be nerfed either, resulting in a meta without Duelists.
Granted, both Yoru and Reyna are agents that by their design seem to be catering more to the solo queue player's heart and soul and an absence from pro play might even be desirable.
Across the company, Riot Games' design philosophy doesn't seem to dislike the idea of heroes or Agents that primarily are to be played outside of pro play.
In League of Legends, Riot recently signalled it would impose drastic measures on Yuumi after she had dominated pro play - even though iher kit was mostly designed to be an entrance character for casual players.
Whether or not these Agents will be given a hand to gain pro-play relevance after VCT Masters Tokyo heading into VCT Champions 2023 is currently not known.
You can catch the conclusion of Masters Tokyo live on Twitch at 4 am BST on Saturday June 24 for the lower bracket final between Evil Geniuses and Paper Rex. The final is set to take place at 5 am BST on Sunday June 25 with the winner of this match playing Fnatic in the grand final.
About The Author
Sascha Heinisch
Sascha "Yiska" Heinisch is a Senior Esports Journalist at GGRecon. He's been creating content in esports for over 10 years, starting with Warcraft 3.
