Phoenix, Brimstone, and Chamber were the three most successful agents in VALORANT‘s Radiant rank in Episode Six Act One, according to Blitz. However, they don’t enjoy the same success in professional play. In fact, the pros are not even selecting those agents across the three VCT leagues, according to VLR.gg’s statistics.
Phoenix led the race with a 54.8 percent win rate in Radiant, followed by Brimstone (54 percent) and Chamber (53.2 percent), but the duelist has only been picked twice at VCT Americas—and only by Cloud9 on Pearl. Phoenix has also been picked twice by Paper Rex at VCT Pacific, also on Pearl, and twice by Team Heretics at VCT EMEA, this time on Ascent.
Brimstone, on the other hand, is considered by pros a niche pick on Fracture. Sentinels, 100 Thieves, KRÜ Esports, C9, and Evil Geniuses played the controller on the map at VCT Americas, Vitality, KOI, and BBL Esports played Brimstone at VCT EMEA, and a number of Asian teams—Team Secret, T1, Paper Rex, DetonatioN FocusMe, Talon Esports, and Rex Regum Qeon—used Brimstone on Fracture at VCT Pacific.
As for Chamber, the sentinel who defined the meta in 2022, he has only played in one league thus far. FURIA are the only team at VCT Americas to have used him—on Split, versus LOUD and KRÜ. The French agent is yet to be picked at VCT EMEA and VCT Pacific.
Related: The best agents in VALORANT: Ranked tier list
The reason why Phoenix, Brimstone, and Chamber are good in casual Ranked VALORANT play but don’t see time in pro play is likely because the pros see more value in their counterparts such as Omen and Viper (controllers), Killjoy (sentinel), and Jett (duelist).
Killjoy, for example, has the highest pick rate at VCT Americas (78 percent), second-highest at VCT Pacific (71 percent), and second-highest at VCT EMEA (55 percent) due to all she provides to the team in terms of utility.
This poses true challenge for the VALORANT developers, as any buffs to Phoenix, Brimstone, and Chamber could make them skyrocket in popularity among pros and become OP as Chamber was in 2022. But if those agents are still doing just fine in ranked, they might just leave them as is.
