Of all the showstopping plays and miraculous clutches we saw at VCT Champions 2023, one player stood out. Not just for incredible aim or decisive reads on the enemy team, but for bringing one of the oldest agents in the game back to life.
North America’s Evil Geniuses took home the 2023 Champions trophy after a tumultuous first franchised season, and while all of their players showed up to every match with fighting spirit, initiator player Corbin “C0M” Lee stands out.
Of the 49 kills obtained with Hunter’s Fury—agent Sova’s ultimate—by all teams combined at Champions 2023, C0M singlehandedly netted 22 of them, according to data from Rib.gg.
Hunter’s Fury is usually an easy ultimate to predict and avoid. Overall, it isn’t considered a strong ultimate as a whole, more used for countering in very specific instances. You’ll mostly see a Hunter’s Fury in your ranked games to destroy a Killjoy Lockdown or prevent a spike defuse.
But C0M uses the ultimate in a bit differently.
By anticipating and getting information from his team on his enemies’ positions, he is able to actually use the ultimate more proactively while still staying a safe distance away from the action himself. This fits well with EG’s aggressive style that they ultimately used to take down Paper Rex in the grand final.
Not only was C0M using Hunter’s Fury exceptionally, but he also had perfect placement for recon darts and shock darts. His synergy with his team made him stand out on every map where he played Sova. One of his best individual performances in the tournament came the first time EG faced PRX, where he had a 304 average combat score on Ascent while playing—you guessed it—Sova.
Sova has always been a bit of a niche agent with a high skill ceiling and has recently fallen out of the meta in favor of other initiators like Skye, KAY/O, and Fade. Yet C0M proves that if you have the awareness and knowledge of the Russian archer, he might be a stronger pick than you think.
After EG played Sova on Ascent and Fracture at Masters Tokyo, some teams actually switched their compositions to match them come Champions. C0M even mentioned this in a tweet during the group stage of the tournament.
Sova is one of VALORANT’s oldest agents, which also explains why he has been falling off in the pro scene over the last season. Many teams find that the utility and playstyle of other initiators suits them better. But with C0M’s 2023 Champions performance, it’s entirely possible that more and more Sova picks will be locked in not only in pro play but also in your own lobbies.
If you specialize in the initiator role and haven’t learned how to shoot a recon dart so it bounces in the right spot, it might be time to start.
