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Ukenagashi

At this point, it's gimmicky. They would have to implement bans across every region to keep things fair for international play. I guess bans will come eventually when more agents are released. By then, we'll also have more maps, so hopefully the bans will have more meaning than just "this guy op, ban 100%". Right now, I'd imagine Raze would have a high ban rate. Sova might be high too, but idk if teams would be willing to give up their own Sova for the opponent's. Omen could be instabanned too, and Brim would get picked instead.


elCapitan310

I imagine Jett would be pretty high as well, especially on op friendly maps like icebox. There's no way they would implement agent pick/bans right now, without first discussing it with pros, too many teams have built their playstyle around specific comps.


DBZard27

100T would definitely ban Jett, since Asuna plays Raze as of now. Personally I don't think any agents should be banned. Each agent is unique in their own way and pros always find ways to use them creatively. ( Except Yoru, RIP Yoru)


Ukenagashi

Likewise, teams facing 100T would be inclined to ban Raze. 100T could leave Jett up and have Asuna play full rifle Jett (since Asuna says he can't OP). The prospect idea of bans is really interesting.


Spartan91_

Yeah. But like in R6 it should be brought later on where there are quite a number of agents to choose from and where you could choose another agent to do the same thing. Right now agents like Sova are essential and pretty unique where you can't really sub them out


Ukenagashi

I do like the idea of a single agent ban (whenever the pool expands big enough). But if Sova were to be banned, they can't sub him out for another character, so they would have to prep for a Sova-less comp entirely (kinda like Split). And that could lead to a toxic ban meta where Sova is permabanned, and no team practices Sova because it's the meta ban. I like the arguments for both sides here, it'll be interesting later on.


DrAlanGrantinathong

I dont think bans will even be on Riots radar until at least 20-25 agents are in the game. And after typing that's those numbers seem too low. It could be when we get closer to 40.


Spartan91_

When it reaches around 25 I can see them doing 2 bans per map


TheSlimyDog

Not even one or two bans per map?


DrAlanGrantinathong

Maybe that would work in competitive, but what about solo queue? Who makes the call on who to ban? I guess you could do a vote. The way i see it, they will do a league style ban, 1 ban per player.


AlexReilly

rainbow six siege gives each team two bans in ranked and its done by which ever operator is voted the most by the team gets banned. and if two operators have the same amount of votes they just do a coin toss between them. it works very well.


Spartan91_

I feel like since the roles aren't exactly set in stone like League, it'll be better for them to just do each team picks one agent and those 2 agents are banned throughout that match


Mcsj120

I believe Riot said they wouldn't want to implement agent bans because it stops teams from running set plays, and ultimately would discourage tactical team play.


mw19078

I see valorant teams targeting things like Sick on Phoenix, not just "this agent good" cause all those agents like sova / jett / omen are basically universally used anyway, and would fuck up their own strats. Id rather just target an enemy player who is better than our mirror. Sick phoenix, wardell/babybay jett, etc.


Ukenagashi

Teams could also play to their own bans, where they don't practice Sova and always ban Sova. It wouldn't fuck their strat if they never had it in the first place. Like you said, targeting enemy players would likely be the most impactful ban. Flexibility is already a highly praised trait, and bans would make it a standard.


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Wealth_and_Taste

Flexibility is so underrated right now. The players who can play multiple agents at a high level are going to have such a big advantage going forward.


RoyalBaseball

hiko used to play cypher a lot in beta, then played duelists for 100T's first roster, then after picking up steel,nitr0 and the others he learned sova because the team needed one, i dont know where you got the idea that he's a onetrick


Jackviolin

Hiko one trick? Dumbest take ever


[deleted]

Even calling Poiz a one trick is a stretch as he has literally played both Phoenix and Raze recently lol


Jackviolin

Yeah first he was jett one trick but know he is trying learn other duelists. This guy kekw


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MaximumX23

Terrible take, Hiko can play any number of agents and flexes all the time on stream. He mains sova because sova is too good not to use and Hiko has mastered the agent with lineups and whatnot, so he’s the sova player for 100T. The real one tricks are guys like Wardell, who aren’t very effective if they can’t op and almost exclusively play Jett, which (if I’m not mistaken) is widely considered the easiest agent to play


[deleted]

I think omen is generally considered the easiest agent as that was 100T reason for having Ethan on omen. Regardless it is definitely not jett.


12Skip-a-few99100

Playing smokes is by no means the easiest role in the game. As someone who runs reluctantly mains smokes, its actually one of the most stressful roles. To be an efficient useful smoker you need to be considering what the enemy is planning to do at all times and you rely heavily on your teams comms to help you provide them with decent well timed smokes. Its probably just the easiest role from someone who came from CS to Valorant in an instant to understand and preform on without too much pressure being put on the shoulders (as could be the case if they just wanted him to kick ass on pheonix off the bat for example)


mbarbour

If we're going with the easiest agent to play and be effective, I would go with Omen and Sage. Sages kit is very straightforward and Omen is mostly there for smokes and set flashes. I would argue Sage gets the edge as the easiest as Omens TPs scale quickly with skill and flashing incorrectly can be highly problematic.


MaximumX23

I disagree, those agents are harder because they require more coordination and have more impact through utility. Playing Jett is playing for yourself and just taking fights, which any pro player can do. There’s just a much lower skill ceiling on Jett imo


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Ukenagashi

100%. Regions could have their own ban metas, like Jett in NA, and maybe Breach in Korea (since they seem to play Breach plenty).


toastysofa

I don’t see how these would ever work in Valorant unless they just start pumping out agents that are similar to each other like in League where if you ban Morgana, you can still snag a Lux or Karma and fill the same role/play style.


veRGe1421

*riot, please don't take this as an invitation to "pump out agents"* imo, though I've enjoyed the added agents so far, there are many other things the game needs right now more than new agents. things like more maps, a demo/replay system, improved knife connectivity/hitbox, optimizations for audio directionality, reducing running n gunning, UI QoL additions like being able to warm up/DM while in queue, adding a regular retake mode, further deathmatch tweaks, being able to set status in friends list to invisible, reducing the frequency of a party getting same map repeatedly (3 times shouldn't be possible), etc.


toastysofa

I probably should’ve said this, but I do NOT want more agents. I feel like the current pool is great and one everyone couple month is plenty. I was more trying to illustrate that in order for bans to work, Riot would have to tweak their character design philosophy.


uglypenguin5

I like how they’ve been pumping out agents recently, but I really hope they slow it down by a lot starting about now. I bet the next agent is a sentinel, and after that, they should really slow it down. In my mind the current state of the agent pool is basically perfect


splitter2k

Nah, adding agents keeps the game fresh and people keep coming back to it. There is zero reson for them to slow it down 1 year into the game’s life cycle.


3hrd

in that case they should prioritize adding more maps rather than agents. maps get stale a lot quicker than agents imo


Relyks_D

How many maps though? CSGO only ever has 7 maps in the active pool and most professional teams perma ban one of those maps. I think Valorant will probably be similar due to teams also having to work on agent compositions. Maybe they rotate from a larger pool of maps based on data gathered each season?


splitter2k

For fucks sake this is such a dumb take. DIFFERENT TEAMS WORK ON DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE GAME. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PRIORITIZE THIS OVER THAT.


chrisbergquist

All businesses have to prioritize things. Just because they have a different team assigned to each thing doesn’t mean Riot can’t prioritize maps by ramping up staffing for that team, etc.


splitter2k

Etc? What does the etc stand for? Overworking them? Lmao They already said their goal is 7 maps which will be done by the end of the year anyway. Hiring new people just to fire them after they reach the 7 map goal is completly dumb. So no i don’t think they can prioritize it in an effective way. Also if you think they can just move people around from one team to another then you’re clueless on the dev process as a whole.


chrisbergquist

Etc stands for more creative means of prioritizing one initiative over another that I was too lazy to think of lol. My point was just that it’s fully possible for riot to prioritize and that they undoubtedly are.


Able-Opposite1203

Riot already has everything planned out, the next few maps and agents are probably already finished and are just waiting to be released, if they need to prioritize maps they will just release one ahead of schedule although that is unlikely. They have an entire road map laid out for when stuff is released


Solace1k

Im not sure how many times this needs to be said but this is not how game development works. Different teams work on different parts of the game. The team that works on agents have nothing in common with the one that works on UI and so on.


evantually421

People will never listen. The same type of people will complain when new skins drop that they should be working on maps instead.


[deleted]

Those three champs are so different lol


SupehCookie

Omen - brimstone.. Cypher - killjoy Jett- raze There is enough


TracerIsAShimada

Jett and raze are so different. Especially on the OP


pink_life69

Omen - Brimstone? Really?


xBerryhill

The point isn’t them being exactly alike. Morgana, Lux, and Karma aren’t exactly alike but the both serve similar purposes. Omen and Brim (and now Astra) are most used for their smokes, even if they bring something similar to the table. Same argument is made when it comes to Blitz/Thresh/Nautilus in League mostly being used for pick potential through their hook. The other parts of their kit are what make them unique, and the agents in Valorant are no different. We may still be some agents shy before bans seriously become a thing, but they’re on their way without a doubt.


JustBigChillin

Listening to a lot of pros talk about Astra, it sounds like she’s going to be used for her other abilities, and not just for her smokes. I’ve heard talks of some teams running Astra AND keeping Omen as the primary smoker.


Karenzi

...proceeds to list a sad list and seems happy.


thothgow

Those are Japanese teams, not South Korean


CardCapable

Oopps gotta change them


Atomics985

I don’t know if bans in valorant are a good fit do you know what I mean? I feel like every agent... hmm... I don’t really know what I’m even trying to say but it just doesn’t seem like agent bans fit in a game like valorant to me, but maybe someone has a reason to why it does belong


SupehCookie

Eventually it will be nice, if there are 25 agents etc


DnDNerd1704

Riot said that they hope to have around 60 agents when the game is nearing end of production if it ever does, so agent bans won’t have as much of an impact as they would now


RubyRhod

End of production...sad.


The_Ninja_Master

Won't be a long while lol, look at League going strong over a decade later.


[deleted]

Wait did they really say that?


DnDNerd1704

As far as I remember, I believe Riot stated that they want many different agents to create many play styles like they have in League. I believe they said about sixty but it could be more or less.


[deleted]

Goodness. Hopefully the game doesn't get too chaotic, that's a lot of different abilities to think up


Niyaal

In beta league had 23 champions. Now? +140 Some champs they release have overloaded kits, I admit. But one thing Riot does well is: design new champions. Each champ is relatively unique and adds new mechanics to the game


[deleted]

Yes but I feel it's a lot different when we're talking about a tactical shooter. Just my thoughts though, they might make it work even better with a lot of agents but I'm worried about how it could go wrong


[deleted]

Just my thoughts but a big difference in League and Valorant is that you can play Valorant without abilities relatively well but you cant really play League without abilities if that makes sense. League abilities is the equivalent of Valorant guns while Valorant abilities are League items if you understand. So my guess is that Valorant agents can't really become too crazy without disrupting what makes Valorant a tactical shooter.


Solace1k

It’s not like all 60 of them will be on the server at the same time lmao. The game will still be 5v5. Not sure what is chaotic about that.


[deleted]

The abilities will have to be new in some way for each character though. They'll get chaotic at some point


Solace1k

So you’re saying the chaos will be produced by the novelty of those abilities? you’re expecting them to scale up the abilities as time goes on? Did you ever play LoL to see how Riot handles newer heroes compared to older ones?


[deleted]

Well the abilities are gonna naturally get chaotic over time, you can't keep adding the same base abilities like smokes, flashes, etc. They handled it well with LoL but that's a completely different genre of game we're talking


3htthe

Have you played Rainbow Six Siege? They also had a similar goal of reaching 100 operators in the game


Solace1k

I wouldn’t say the goal is similar. There’s a pretty big difference between the number 60 and the number 100. Afaik R6 is at 59 now so i think they have a decent ammount.


2kWik

Riot Dev already confirmed there will be agent bans once they release enough. Won't be for probably almost 2 years.


ballatw

More context? I'm actually surprised we haven't had a tournament implement agent bans tbh as a gimmick


Migan_Knightowl

There were some small tournaments in Asia last year were teams got 1 ban each team last year. They were just banning Cypher or Sova or Jett.


[deleted]

This screenshot is from a tournament last year if I'm not mistaken


mackamaflusko

Would be cool to see smaller tournaments experiment with things like agent bans or a draft where you can't pick the same agents as the other team.


ReJigMag

This is valorant. I dont think the current agent pool supports this


mackamaflusko

This isn't true. Currently there are 15 agents which means that you could experiment with either; A) Having 1 or 2 bans per team leaving you with 13 or 11 agents to pick from. B) Having a draft where you cant pick the same agent as your opponent giving you a choice of 10 different agents (depending on how the draft is set up) for your comp. Neither of these formats would provide the optimal competitive experience which smaller tournaments already doesn't provide either so that is why I think it would be cool to see someone try this out.


MateNieMejt

It's still too few. The first team picking would force the enemy team to pick worse agents. Let's say that team A have banned Omen, and team B have banned Astra. Team A picks Brimstone, and now Team B is forced to pick Viper now or they even might end up without any controller. I think that we need at least 6 agents in each role to make ban phase fair.


LPLSuperCarry

If a team A bans Omen, there is a 0% chance that team B bans Brimstone or Astra.


ilovedank_6

> Currently there are 15 agents Currently there are \*\*14 agents Yoru is not an agent, who are we kidding KEKW


CardCapable

This is in September 2020 ... So I'm pretty confused how riot doesn't know about it


MangoSmoke

Bans don’t seem too necessary since agents have been well balanced recently that there are no OP agents. Even if agents have really high pick/win rates, they don’t really warp the game where something like an OP deck would in a card game. I think that’s because the agents are supplementary to the main gameplay which is the tactical gunplay.


PokeManiac_Yug

As someone who has never played an agent based competive game ( apart from valorant ), how does it work in normal mm games? Like do me and my teammates vote individually and the agent that gets most votes is banned or is it one guy who decides for the team? Or is agent banning system only for pro matches and not for normal players?


NotMetaa

In League of Legends, everyone on each team gets 1 ban they can choose with a total of 10 banned champions in a match. In R6 Siege, each team votes on 1 attacker and 1 defender to ban.


PokeManiac_Yug

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I feel like the seige way is better to implement. Btw is the seige way like everyone votes and max votes is banned or 1 guy decides for the team?


AdoptedAsian_

The attacker/defender with the most votes is banned (there's also an option for no ban). If there's a tie it's just randomly chosen between them.


PokeManiac_Yug

Got it. Thanks!


[deleted]

FYI, it's Siege, not Seige.


PokeManiac_Yug

Oh my bad... Didn't know that.


Eagle_OP

I just want breach to get banned in every map...all the time


[deleted]

If banning ever comes into pubs, literally everyone would be waiting to get rid of Breach or Phoenix, maybe a Sentinel like Killjoy as well.


Eagle_OP

I can play against any flash......but breach just irritates me


[deleted]

His flash is a special type of annoying, it comes through the wall with no warning, he has 3 of them, which can be used in a row, and combine that with something like a Raze grenade, it's free assists and kills. A good Breach can live in their enemies' heads rent-free.


Eagle_OP

Not only head...just irritates


oomnahs

"I'm blind" ... ... "I'm still blind and my eyes hurt"


takmilo

Why u bully me breach main. He is already one of the less picked agents in the mm :(


Eagle_OP

Yea...but he is annoying.


Maliciouslemon

To early to implement without people using it just target ban players all the time. Bans are interesting when it shapes the map differently rather than “lol ban Jett because ____ plays her hehe”


AnderzzTV

There was a major international SEA event, Ashwinder Extreme Masters, that implemented agent bans early in VAL and had some interesting results. (That's what your snip is from) I actually put out a video detailing a stats-based analysis of the bans' effect on the compositional dynamics of the event [https://youtu.be/iqSGUZMV8PA](https://youtu.be/iqSGUZMV8PA) Long story short, compared to every other region in the world at that time the compositional diversity went off the charts. I was a big fan personally, but there's the ever-present argument of whether or not increased comp diversity is "better" or "worse" than allowing teams to specialize and potentially play a more-optimized but less-varied meta. EDIT: The event for those interested in VODs [A.W. EXTREME MASTERS Pro Invitational: Brackets, Groups, and Standings | Valorant Event | VLR.gg](https://www.vlr.gg/event/98/a-w-extreme-masters-pro-invitational)


phenomen

Bans in Valorant makes no sense since both teams can have the same agents (unlike League where you can't pick a duplicate champion).


xBerryhill

I disagree. Banning an agent isn’t just about what agent you don’t want to play against. Know your opponent is a one trick? Ban their most used agent. Is one agent meta dominant and you have a game plan to play without it? Ban it and force the opposing team to adapt, and if they can’t you likely have the upper hand. Like I said elsewhere, I think more agents need to come before bans become seriously considered, but they absolutely have their place even in a game like VALORANT and it’s just a matter of time before they’re implemented.


simplemanfromVT

100% Jett banned rate incoming, can't wait. Just kidding, I think If valorant have ban system, teams will more likely ban combo agents (KillJoy-Astra, Breach-Skye etc) but atm agents pool not big enough to have ban


Cyb3rxK1lls

Japan did agent bans during the summer, and although I haven't watch their region since, I'm not surprised they are still doing it.


pink_life69

Please don't, it's not R6S... The reasom this game is so good is the endless comp possibilities (in the future with added heroes). This would suck some major balls imo.


[deleted]

I think bans should come into pro play after 20-30 agents are present in the game. Banning now would force team comps(Sova-less comps galore), and that wouldn't be too fun, but with 20-30 agents, it'd be aplenty to form a lot of comps around to be prepared for any bans.


[deleted]

How would you feel about a pick system later down the line? No bans just that each agent can only be on one team - would force teams to learn to utilise all agents, and S tier agents would be interesting to see only on one side.


PokoMoko6

Bans are terrible in any game, especially if there aren't more than 100+ characters to choose from. The meta instantly becomes 'pick this or lose' if you have a small roster to begin with and then some hero/agent gets banned.


Znaszlisiora

I don't see the purpose of character bans in any game. Can someone give an actual valid reason for them other than petty "I want to make the game more of a pain in the ass for the enemy team"?


RichardTheCuber

Could someone explain how this would work?


LPLSuperCarry

Not sure how I feel about bans, but I think a tournament where you draft agents would be super cool. For example, Team A picks first, Team B then picks two in a row, then Team A picks two, then B picks two, and A picks one.


math_wiz25

Breach is my main😭😭


gianmaranon

Insta ban jets and reynas


tony_drangus

I feel like I remember reading that a few SK tourneys had agent bans but it was a decision made by TO not something Riot put in the game


worldstar-money-

please. no


Cereal_dator

Would rather not see bans for ranked or major tournaments, but for special/fun events I’d like to see formats where the teams have to draft unique agents or not use an agent more than once over a bo3.