Rainbow Six Siege’s newest free update, Operation Dread Factor, launched on May 30 and brought with it a new defender, Fenrir. After just two days on the main build, many professional players have already made their judgment on the Swedish defender clear, labeling him as overpowered.
Fenrir’s unique ability brings five F-NATT Dread Mines that severely restrict the point of view of any attackers who enter its range. This “fear effect” then gives defenders the perfect opportunity to swing around the corner and take out the blind attacker.
Related: Best Fenrir synergies in Rainbow Six Siege
While initial reactions to the operator were strong, with many comparing the gadget to Ela’s Grzmot Mines or Melusi’s Banshee devices, since his release on the Test Server, many players have realized his true ability to shake up the game—leading to more decisive language.
Jack “Doki” Robertson, a reigning world champion from G2 Esports, was perhaps the clearest when he tweeted that Fenrir “is undoubtedly one of the strongest operators to ever enter the game. His gadget completely changes the mechanics of the game and introduces a new type of triggered aggression on defence.”
Niclas “Pengu” Mouritzen, Rainbow Six Siege’s all-time most successful player, agreed in response, saying “after scrimming last night and properly playing around the gadget, man’s so good.”
This sentiment was shared across the Rainbow Six world, with North American professional player for Oxygen Esports Davide “FoxA” Bucci tweeting that he expects Fenrir to be played a lot in competitive tournaments and saying “Fenrir is solid… He’s gonna have a high skill ceiling, especially in PL.” He did, however, deny that the operator was overpowered.
In the Japanese scene, caster Tomohisa “Tomozoh” Yamano shared a tweet saying, according to machine translation, Fenrir is “so strong you can’t help but laugh. How do you stop this… Fenrir is the strongest.”
While there has been a long list of operators that have been branded overpowered on launch only to make a minimal impact on the competitive meta, Fenrir seems to be the third defender in a row to become close to a must-pick alongside Azami and Solis. In contrast, two of the last three attackers in the last year—Sens and Grim—have been somewhat underwhelming.
One reason why some of the highest-ranked players are so impressed by Fenrir is that he can see the status of his traps from behind walls, meaning a player can hide behind a wall and passively collect information from across the map to stop pushes. This was a role Lesion held from his launch in September 2017 until he was nerfed in March 2020 so he could only see the status of his gadgets when in their line of sight.
One of the biggest downsides of Fenrir, as pointed out by a lot of streamers, was that while he has five F-NATT gadgets, he can only activate three at a time. While this is a notable issue at most levels, the ability to collect passive information from even deactivated mines is likely what makes his skill ceiling so high and what makes him so good in a competitive setting.
As well as Fenrir’s gadget, a number of professionals have taken issue with his secondary weapon options. Fnatic’s French strategic coach, Théo “Phenomene” Hentgen, tweeted on May 16 that his Bailiff secondary makes him “a bit too strong.” The Bailiff 410 shotgun secondary is most commonly used to make rotation holes, making Fenrir even more useful in setting up a site.
Rainbow Six world champion Jason “Beaulo” Doty did have a different take on stream after first trying out the Test Server, saying that while Fenrir did have good utility and a good gun, he was “not ridiculously overpowered.” He, however, did take issue with Fenrir’s lack of a secondary handgun option, which has since been fixed.
Related: New Rainbow Six defender Fenrir buffed ahead of Operation Dread Factor launch
While there is no competitive quarantine for new operators anymore, there isn’t a top-tier event until the Gamers8 tournament starts on July 13, meaning we’ll have to wait to see how the game’s best both play and counter Fenrir.
We did get to see Fenrir’s lower-level competitive debut, however, as the European League team TT9 Esports chose the defender in the tier-three Talent League tournament at the end of May. After the game, the team’s manager, Igor “TheRealestRussian” Obukhov, also called Fenrir overpowered.
