Riot’s tactical shooter is only in the beta phase, but it has already established itself as an Esports giant. The first pros have already announced their intention to participate in a professional Valorant scene – a scene that doesn’t even exist yet.

Valorant has an internal training mode, but that was probably not good enough for these Esports players and streamers: Team Liquid decided to hold a so-called Grudge Match. A gang of streamers, current and former pros, went up against Team Liquid’s professional CS:GO team in a test match here:

Team Valorant:

• Mendo
• dizzy
• POACH
• Ace
• Kellar
• Team CS:GO:
• EliGE
• Stewie2k
• NAFF
• nitr0
• Twistzz (replaced by n0thing in Game 1)

Since the Grudge Match only featured Valorant, we decided to watch the event from Team Valorant’s point of view as well – more specifically via Mendo’s Twitch Stream.

Grudge Match with problems

Right before the start of the test match, Mendo announced the first problem: NRG’s Dizzy had texted him just 20 minutes before the start of the game. It said that he is not sure if he will be able to participate in the test match against Team Liquid “tomorrow”. Um… I think someone misunderstood something. Either that, or the gamer name Dizzy is program.

But luckily Mendo just came out of a joint stream with none other than Mixer streamer Shroud. He didn’t take much pleading and, without any warning at all, agreed to stand in for Dizzy. All he wanted to know was what the exact intention behind this test match against Team Liquid’s Counter Strike pros was. Later, Shroud was able to sum it up succinctly in dialogue:

“So you all want to be Valorant professionals?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“That’s going to be tough.”

Wise words of caution from the former Cloud 9 CS:GO pro.

Best-of 3: Game 1

For Team Valorant, Mendo, Shroud, POACH, Ace, and Kellar selected agents Sage, Jett, Brimstone, Phoenix, and Cypher, respectively, in the first game. For Team CS, EliGE, Stewie2k, NAFF, Nitr0 and N0thing chose Phoenix, Raze, Brimstone, Sage and Breach.

The first game took place on the split map and Team CS played as the defender to take an immediate four to zero lead. Last minute replacement Shroud was about the only one on his team who was really in the game. It took the rest of Team Valorant until Round 6 to back him up, when they finally recorded a win – thank Sage, who in the hands of Mendo showed why she’s indispensable to any team with a perfectly timed revival. So Team Valorant then slowly played their way in, and finally Poach was able to pull out the win in Round 8 with a little extra clutch to tie the game at 4-4. While Team Valorant was clearly outmatched by the CS Pros in terms of objectives, they used the game’s trademark agent abilities skillfully and effectively.

Still, they were down 5-7 at halftime… However, the switch from Attackers to Defenders in round 12 brought new momentum to the game and, with good Eco and the clever use of Abilities, they compensated for their poorer targeting and evened the game at 10-10 for the time being.

Support Mendo not only supported his team with Sage heals and revives, he was also verbally supportive: with clear announcements and tactics, he perhaps took the support role a bit too seriously, however, and came up with only 4 kills in Game 1. Team CS ultimately won the series 13-10.

MVP on the losing team was Shroud with his 30 kills. Who knows if the 25-year-old is just waiting for the right time to announce his Valorant Pro intentions.

Best of 3: Game 2

Best-of 3: Game 2

“Picking losers” – so Team Valorant could start Game 2 on the map Haven as Defender. Mendo was confident in the map with its three Bomb Sites, “I think we can win on Haven.”

Apex Legends player and legend in his own right, Ace, switched to agile agent Jett in hopes of maybe bringing some “legendary” Apex magic to Valorant. Shroud took over Phoenix to continue his aggressive play, and Poach opted for wall-loving Breach and his harrowing qualities – after all, Haven does have a few more treacherous corners than Split. Keller swapped out Cypher for Brimstone and on Team CS’s side, Raze was again replaced with Cypher.

Game 2 started and what Mendo left in kills in Game 1, he found here over the first 5 rounds. Unfortunately Team CS still gained a 4:1 advantage.

Team Valorant hoped to get back into the game in round 6, but nothing came of it and instead the lead increased to 11-1 by halftime.

Ace is no slouch and let his team know, “If they can make 11, we can make 12.” With such a spirited halftime speech, Team Valorant started the second half with renewed fire, only to take another beating in round 13… 12-1.

Ace didn’t let it get him down, and he has no shortage of motivational sayings anyway: “We need 12 in a row. Never been done before. Let’s go.”

Sounds reasonable, but Ace’s teammates couldn’t do much with it, because 1 minute and 40 seconds later Game 2 was decided with 13:1 and so the Best-of-3 series was lost for Team Valorant.

Post-game, Ace summed up the defeat aptly:

“They’ve been playing as a CS team for 6 years. They just aim better. These are CS targeting mechanics here. If anyone is going to be good at this game, it’s them.”
His team agreed…the better team just won. “It’s good to lose to a good team. You learn something with every defeat,” Mendo added in the post-game chat session. Still, the Swede wasn’t ready to give up: “I’m down to get ****** on some more.” Good to know…

Team CS offered to shuffle the losing teams, but Mendo again used colorful-expressive English, saying, “If I get shit on, I wanna get shit on with pride.” Okay, fair enough. To each his own.

So the test games continued even after the loss, as Ace, Mendo, Poach, Keller, and Shroud still have a lot to do at Valorant and can obviously use the practice.

We’ll definitely be seeing all five of them on the Valorant scene a lot more. In fact, as early as today, April 14, at the 100 Thieves Invitational where Team Shroud will face off against Team TimTheTatMan (with Poach, Ace & Mendo), Team Yassuo and Team CouRage.

Until then, it should be noted what you can do with the Agent Sova, keyword Ace. Furthermore, Riot Games is planning a ranked system for Valorant. So it remains exciting.

Valorant: How to put together the optimal team

Which roles do you need to fill? How do you divide up the positions? And who is the in-game leader? We have the answers!

Many roles for five positions in the team

You can roughly divide the roles and responsibilities in a team. There is the solo defender, who can hold a point alone. The Support, who makes room with skills that need to be respected. The In-Game Lead makes the calls and works with the information of his teammates. The Entry Fragger and the Secondary are the players who go together on a point and are not afraid of enemy contact. The Sniper, who preferably holds certain angles with an Operator and can get a big advantage for the round with a First Blood, can also be beneficial to the team. Last but not least, there is the Lurker, who preferably keeps opponents busy at the other end of the map and comes from an unexpected side after enemy rotations.

The individual roles can also partially overlap or can be left out entirely or can change from round to round. An in-game leader can also be a solo defender and can also focus on minimap and communication due to defensive play. A balanced team with the assignment of such roles has the advantage that the team members know what their tasks are in the current round and can thus also build on the strengths of their agents.

The Spearhead: Entry Fragger & Secondary

The Entry Fragger is optimally the first player to make contact with the opponents around the Objective being targeted by the team. This can also be an important place on a map as a defender, e.g. to gain some control over the center in Ascent. By his push he makes room for the other mates, passes on the positions of the opponents and has the chance to get the point alone by nimble kills. The best agents for this role are Phoenix and Reyna.

As a secondary, you try to build on the moves, information and kills from the entry fragger. At a certain point, it pays to take a different position, hold different angles, or get behind enemy lines very quickly to take opponents who are rotating out of the action. Jett, Raze, Omen and Breach are particularly suitable for this role.

The Solo Defender

Since most maps have 3 main lanes, only two of them can be defended with a duo, the third “lane” then belongs to the solo defender. On Attack the role is obsolete, but an agent made for this role can here protect the team from flanks or focus on making sure the spike is well placed and defend them additionally with appropriate skills. Those who like this style of play might be satisfied with Cypher, Sage and Sova.

The Support

The main task of the support player is the optimal use of his abilities to make it easier for his own team to attack a point. This includes for example optimal placement of Smokes and the use of Flashes. As supports, many agents are suitable for this role: The solo defender agents can support well in the offense to get information or to cover some angles. Other agents are suitable as supports thanks to their sight-blocking abilities, like Brimstone and Viper, which can make it very easy to access a point. But Sova or Skye are also welcome in the role, as they can scout ahead with their Recon abilities.

The In-Game Leader

No team can function without an IGL. The game starts with the operator choice: Who plays which agent? How should the team split up on the map by default? Which agents do the opponents have? What do we have to pay attention to? How do we time the round? All this information and more have to be communicated to the team. If you want to take the role of the IGL, you should look for an agent who supports this role additionally like all agents who can get additional information by ability like Cypher, Sova and Raze.

The Sniper

Do you have an operator god in your team? Then let him take the role of the Sniper. Defensively, the Sniper can hold many angles where he can stand faster than the enemy team and get free kills especially against slow peeks. If it goes a bit offensive, he tries to move out after the spearhead, gradually covering positions where opponents can come. Good agents to support the sniper’s playstyle are for example Jett to play more offensive angles without risk or Cypher who rotates to other points after building up camera and tripwires to stay unpredictable.

The Lurker

Last but not least, there are the Lone Wolfs, who don’t like to hang out with the team, also called Lurker. This role is also useful in a team to avoid giving half the map to the opponents or to get impatient opponents when they don’t expect it because they rotate through their own spawn. Omen, Reyna and Jett are especially useful for playing off the enemy team, as their abilities make them less likely to fall victim to refrags or to escape from a bad position after a successful kill.

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