If you’ve been watching the VCT Stage 1 Challengers (last week in particular), then you know who our Player of the Month should be for February. It’s penny from Version1!

The VCT Challengers are hype and full of exciting matches. Many of you probably only watch the “main” matches – you know, the ones with the big names and established eSports organizations. That’s understandable, but it’s also an easy way to overlook talented players like Version1’s Erik “penny” Penny, who we’re going to dedicate an entire article to today.

With what he’s shown so far, we think any enthusiast of the Valorant esports scene should be familiar with his name.

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“Penny” (like many of the current Valorant pros) started his eSports career in CS:GO. Although he has not achieved a single major victory, he has competed in high-profile tournaments organized by Dreamhack and ESL. Penny joined Version1’s Valorant roster in February last year and since then this organization has started to shine in the scene.

First, the team qualified for a Masters tournament at the first attempt, and that doesn’t happen every day. And then our current Player of the Month was named Day 2 MVP of the entire tournament, even though no one had this team on their radar, they only finished 5th and lost 0-3 to Fnatic. Still, it was clear that this Major won’t be their last.

As an overall finish in the VCT 2021 Circuit, Version1’s team finished in 4th place, just behind 100 Thieves, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough to make it to the Champions Tournament. Nevertheless, they are on their way back to Reykjavik as they finished first in their group after two weeks of Stage 1 Challengers by defeating Rise and Knights.

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Why is penny our Player of the Month?

Our choice hinges on his performance in the first two weeks of the NA VCT Stage 1 Challengers – we didn’t really have any wiggle room there. An overall KD of 1.45 with Jett and Chamber – and with so much style that stars like “TenZ” and “cNed” might feel a little uncomfortable. You think we’re stepping it up? Take a look for yourself:

Not enough? Then we suggest you watch the game between Version1 and Rise, where he knocked out a clean 46/22:

He has been with Version1 for exactly one year now. Watching this organization rise to the next level and become one of the better valorant teams out there is just hard to wrap your head around. By making him our Player of the Month, we want you to pay some attention to him, because he could be awarded the title of “best sniper in the professional Valorant scene” at any moment. Or maybe he already is, we just still haven’t seen him in action enough.

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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