One of the more recently discovered but extremely effective agent compositions in VALORANT combines two controllers that at first seem like unlikely partners. But once you learn to use them together, you and your duo will be unstoppable.
The combination of Viper and Harbor together brings together two of the game’s strongest controller agents to capitalize on the double controller meta in a new and innovative way.
This strategy has affectionately been dubbed the “pizza slice” strategy by VCT Pacific caster Paperthin. In order to understand how to cook this pizza, it’s first important to understand Viper and Harbor’s roles individually.
How to play Viper and Harbor together
Viper has, for a long time, been one of the strongest agents in the game. Her utility is powerful and her ultimate is overwhelming for the enemy team. However, she struggles to be played as a solo controller due to the lack of spontaneity in her smoke placements. Therefore, she is often played as a hybrid sentinel-controller agent alongside another, stronger controller.
Related: How to play Viper in VALORANT.
At first, Harbor was considered to be a low-tier agent pick, since his utility was no more useful than any other controller agent. His smokes and wall felt clunky, and his pick rate in ranked VALORANT games was very low. After several months, VCT players finally started using Harbor, and now that we’ve seen how good the agent can actually be at gaining map control, his pick rate is going up.
Many teams have been trying out the Viper-Harbor combination, which has proved to be very powerful. The biggest benefit your team gains is that you can have absolute control of a site or area on the map.
Viper and Harbor both have abilities that can block pathways for your enemies. They are fantastic abilities to use to block attackers from getting onto the site, secure spike plants, and prevent site retakes. And though controllers are often favored for their defensive abilities, the pizza slice strategy will allow you to easily attack with them as well.
The most similar abilities between Viper and Harbor are their walls. They both have walls that can extend far out into the map and provide debuffs to any enemies that pass through them. The key to playing these two together is using their walls effectively.
How to use the “pizza slice” strategy
The pizza slice strategy involves placing Viper and Harbor’s walls in a way where they intersect each other to form a triangle, or “pizza slice.”
Once the slice is formed, your team has completely cut off enemies from coming on either side, and you have freedom to move around within the slice. Though the walls will eventually fall, this allows you to plant the spike securely and work from the slice outwards to defend the rest of the site.
One of VCT Pacific’s top teams, T1, were the first team to truly implement this strategy, and they did so on Bind.
Here is an example of how you could use Viper and Harbor’s walls to secure a spike plant on the B site of Bind. Viper will go with the team through B Window/Hookah, and place a wall that will not only cut off the entrance from Defender spawn into B site, but will also block the entrance from the mid teleporter.
Harbor will go around B long, and once the team is ready to push, will place a wall that cuts off B elbow and back-site. A player is then free to plant the spike in a safe location within the slice.
The key to the pizza slice strategy is that the site becomes divided into a much smaller section, which is easier to control than an entire site. Instead of worrying about every angle at once, your team can just control the slice and take things one area at a time.
This is just one example of how you can set up the walls to intersect each other. There are plenty of other ways to utilize the pizza slice formation, and it can work on several maps.
T1 took this strategy one step further by also adding a Gekko to their team composition. Not many teams have played Gekko yet in VCT, but the pizza slice strategy gives him a perfect way to use his utility and also safely recover it.
Gekko’s main benefit compared to other initiators is that all of his abilities are recoverable and can be used more than once in a round. If you send Gekko utility into a site to clear the slice, your Gekko player can safely recover the used ability inside the slice as well.
If you’ve ever wanted to try our using Viper and Harbor together, the pizza slice strategy is a great way to start, just don’t get too hungry mid-round!
