Following the duelist balance changes implemented in VALORANT Patch 8.11, all eyes are on VCT to see how the revamped Iso, Neon, and Reyna will affect pro play. But while Sentinels’ Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro claims to live for the chaos, he’s not so sure many teams are willing to adapt.
“I don’t think there are many teams besides LOUD or [Evil Geniuses] who will heavily shake up the meta,” Zellsis told Dot Esports prior to the start of VCT Americas stage two. “Americas has always played the meta to a T, besides a couple teams here and there who will do funny picks or some agent swaps. But I don’t think we’ll see a lot of Iso/Neon/Reyna. Some teams may throw Neon in there just because they don’t have Jett players.
“I think that’s what Riot is going for with these duelist changes,” Zellsis continued. “Jett and Raze have been dominant for so long and they don’t really know how to nerf them, so they’re just overtuning the other duelists. It was kind of the same thing with initiators and Gekko; they overtuned him and now everyone’s playing him. And I’m all for the chaos.”
Zellsis isn’t alone in thinking Iso, who’s gotten the most attention recently for how much they’ve impacted VALORANT ranked play, may not have as much impact on the pro scene as some people might believe. Cloud9’s in-game leader vanity also spoke to Dot Esports, and said because Iso doesn’t work as a solo duelist, even in his current state, teams won’t be willing to sacrifice the extra controller or initiator they’d have to give up to pick Iso.
There’s some belief, though, that there will be teams who experiment early with the new duelists, namely Iso, that will catch lightning in a bottle. Paper Rex pulled off something similar last year when they started running Reyna and could join the likes of EG or LOUD as teams that come out swinging (literally) with the new and improved Iso.
If Zellsis and Sentinels were to consider adopting the new meta, now would be the time. Zellsis agreed that making Masters Shanghai felt like a blessing in disguise, as the team was given time to rest and prepare for the all important second stage. “We’re very open to trying things, and having a coach and IGL that understand [that] and also want to try thing is very healthy for a team. You never know what might work.”
