New Agent Iso is set to shake up the competitive Valorant queue meta with the frontliner set to become a fan favourite with his fun and fraggy abilities. The New Act also has Premier Changes and the smoke changes have also been recently introduced for better quality of life experiences inside the game. Riot keeps releasing new content that freshens up the game and here’s to hoping they’re a positive force and don’t ruin gameplay as Chamber did upon introduction.
New Agent Iso
Iso is a Chinese Duelist Agent who acts more like a secondary kill collector than a space creator. His abilities are very Reyna-esque, and while his space-eating power is limited, he rewards players who can frag consistently. In this sense, he should get a lot of play in competitive mode but not much in highly organised Esports structured gameplay. His abilities are fun and he’s a real ego peek duelist who either goes 1/15 or 20/6 with no real in-between.
His Basic abilities are Contingency and Undercut. Contingency is a wall that moves forward with one charge. It should be used for pushing into hostile territory and is modelled like a Harbour Cascade. The Undercut is a projectile ability that applies the fragile debuff to all enemies it passes through and goes through objects such as walls. It will be good to prime towards angles enemies may be holding and encourage Iso to swing aggressively onto these angles to get kills. These two abilities seem like they seem more about pushing people away or forcing them to reposition rather than forcefully pushing into space much like Jett or Raze can.
New Agent Iso needs to frag to be effective.
His Signature Ability is Double Tap which allows Iso to enter a flow state where when he gets a kill it generates an energy orb which if shot, grants a shield that absorbs one instance of damage from any source. It gives him immunity against high-damage one-bang abilities like Raze’s abilities or being shot in the back. It’s a fairly powerful ability but having to move your crosshair away and shoot the energy orb makes it less powerful against double swings and is reliant on Iso being able to find isolated one-versus-one duels rather than team holds.
His Ultimate ability is the Kill Contract, which is a 7-charge duelling ability. Iso can throw a column of energy pulling himself and the first enemy hit into an interdimensional area to duel to death. Iso’s ability has two barriers as opposed to the enemy’s one barrier to reposition behind. It’s basically like a Mordekaiser Ultimate from League of Legends, yanking an enemy and forcing them into an unfavourable 1v1.
go stream Iso's theme, RENEGADE by VALORANT x 99 God x C103, right now:
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— VALORANT (@VALORANT) October 23, 2023
Iso’s niche feels like Reyna’s where smurfs and players confident in their mechanical skill will thrive on his kit. In a similar vein, his impact in team-based game modes such as Premier should be less. His abilities all interact selfishly and his self-sufficient nature allows him to take space for the team or initiate flanks by himself. Despite this, he has no entry ability and he needs to fight to provide value for himself and his teammates. Against Agents that can passively dampen his impact with utility from far away, he should struggle. His disadvantages lie in not creating opportunities that teammates can capitalise off, and his value is very performance-based which makes him difficult to be consistent with.
Smoke Changes
The updates to smokes and controller agents have caused a lot of controversy in the community. The changes are that smokes play an audio and visual cue 1.5 seconds before they fade for Astra, Omen and Brimstone’s smokes. Pros and high-level players complain that this lowers the skill ceiling for Controller agents.
Casual players have mainly been welcoming of this change; personally, it has helped me make sure I have smokes ready to refresh choke points. Despite this, I agree with the pros that this isn’t a necessary change and it certainly lowers a lot of the skill expression of Controller agents. Knowing the timings of smokes fading to pop out or move through them is a skill, and it is one of the few ‘timings’ the Controller players could take advantage of to take favourable fights.
Smoke changes lessen the skill expression in the game.
For an agent role that doesn’t have a lot of selfish ability usage and has to burn utility for teammates nine times out of ten, while also not having many abilities that have an inherent advantage in gunfights, this change feels like a buff for every other agent and a nerf for Controllers, especially at higher elos. As a player who has played a lot of Controller, this change is both disappointing and probably has stopped me from learning a new skill. While it may appeal to a large proportion of the casual player base, it’s certainly not a needed change and feels like it lowers skill expression for no reason.
Premier Updates
As an enjoyer of the Premier Gamemode, it’s great to see Valorant take on feedback and add more features to make the game more interesting and competitive in a healthy way at all levels of the game.
The addition of Practice Matches on certain non-match days during a specific one-hour practice window is one of the best new features Valorant have introduced in recent memory. Being not high elo meant my Premier team struggled to find scrims consistently with us practising against the same team repeatedly for the last season. While it was a fun experience, being able to have dedicated times for teams that want to practice gives the team live prep while working out strategy and cohesion. I think it’s perhaps the best update the game mode could have gotten and an in-game mechanic for practice will ensure the longevity of the game mode past its initial novelty.
New Stage. New heights. Let's go.
Take a look at some of the changes coming your way in Premier Stage E7A3. Want to learn more? Get the full rundown in our FAQ:
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— VALORANT (@VALORANT) October 24, 2023
The addition of timeouts is another feature that makes it feel like players are playing their own VCT game, with a timeout available on each side of the map and once in overtime. This shouldn’t mess up the tempo of the game too much while it gives teams time to recover from a slide or come up with on-the-fly adjustments.
The seeding change with teams’ with higher Premier scores having better seeding encourages teams that have already qualified to play their matches for more points and gives teams that have worked hard during the season an advantage. It also more closely resembles the Esports format that Premier is a pathway into, so it’s a great change for the competitive landscape of the game mode.
The Premier Crests are a nice cosmetic addition to team performance and give extra incentive for players to work harder in group settings in order to prove their worth. It’s a neat way of showing progress and success for teams and gives concrete evidence of the triumphs teams have fought for throughout the season. Much like competitive badges, these badges should motivate players to strive for more and for those with success, will give them a way to show it to others.
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