b4 Chatgpting it

I'mmmaaa bout to go on a rant.

I think the silliest thing in all Valorant is this married concept of we must play these agents on this map. And then the wildly misunderstood concept that if this human is my duelist they are responsible for all duelist agents is insane.

Let's break down the first one, "we must play these agents"

The idea, "we must play these agents on this map" is totally misunderstood. To the point where I want to pull my hair out. So before we get started, let me let you know, I'm old. I've seen/witnessed and been a part of the entire evolution of organized esports. I know we've built a kingdom out of the idea of esports but we parade around and pretend we built this kingdom on solid informational ground. There are no text books. There are no experiments that tell you this is right and this is wrong. We are the test subjects and our experimenters aren't writing this stuff down.

So the logical idea behind "we must play these agents" is that their abilities solve the informational problems that the map presents. This assumes a couple of things that seem to be wrong. First, we have identified and completely understood the problems on the map. We understand that viper has a very long wall and that Breeze is a very big map. The wall is reusable, applies a de-buff and denies vision. All completely useless when some how our Viper dies in the first 30 seconds of the round. The lack of discipline around this is craaazzy.

Honestly, how many times do pros die in situations where their utility would have been useful? And this is my first "I'm going to die on this hill moment" You cannot tell me, that putting pros on agents that they don't find fun/interesting is the best decision. That is a decision that is made in a hypothetical vacuum where they never die in positions they shouldn't. They never miss-time their utility usage or misplay it. You are expecting perfection on agents they want nothing to do with. On agents that require a certain style and the ability to potential switch the way the play the game. All for what? So they can not use the utility and not have fun while playing?

In competitive ranked play, gun play is first. I totally get it. But the teams that understand utility usage and come up with creative ways to use that utility will be the ultimate winners in the end. Utility = Advantage and when you're dealing with the planets top 0.01% of players, skill wise will be an impossible hurdle to overcome.

And that's what we are seeing evolve. Coaches with a minimal understanding about how to play the game, forcing the idea that we will just run the same comps as everyone and based on our players we will assert our dominance. This is why we see Demon1 crash out. This is why we see Aspas underperforming.

So why does Aspas and Demon1 seem to be shaky on Raze over other agents? Raze is the only real character that disorients you before shooting. So as you are flying through the air, you are usually air-strafing. This is movement, right? So when Raze hits the ground, there is a sudden forced slow down in acceleration and your movement is disrupted. Well on a Phantom this is fine. Recoil reset and low movement penalties allow you more options. If we take a look at our two super stars on tracker...

Aspas: https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/aspas%23na%D1%85y/weapons?season=all
Demon1: https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/NRG%20Demon1%23kata/weapons?playlist=competitive&season=all

Both stars have significant less experience with Phantoms than Vandals.

We tell ourselves these are the same, there is no difference. And the reason that is such a convincing argument is because yes, at a base level you can play these two guns the same. The rifle classification has a very simple floor. Tap to win.

But to pull out the differences in these two guns is what happens after the baseline gunplay. Movement is that difference. It hasn't quite hit mainstream tourneys yet but people have taken the "poppin swing" and deconstructed it to abuse movement in almost all gun fights. The Phantom with its low resets, dominates this new wave of gunplay. The Vandal struggles because of it's 1 tap potential. You have to have a downside and since Phantom can't 1 tap, magic, we have the difference.

This was all to say in the end, pairing Raze with Phantom is optimizing the agent with the correct gun play efficiency. If your talent is not using the Phantom, it's not that their aim is terrible, the style is different. For Aspas and Demon1, their aim style is more mechanical. There's a wind up. When you disrupt that wind up, you're introducing additional steps and concepts they have not practiced at a 0.01% level.

And to tie it back to the second issue of agents must be played on this map, we have all heard the saying "there is more than one way to skin a cat." Lean into this proverb. We are smart people. Try something different that utilizes your talent's skills instead of embarrassing them with assignments they don't want or match with.