It turns out there’s a lot more strategy to a save round in VALORANT than at first glance, according to one of the game’s top coaches and content creators during his regular viewer coaching series.
Jollztv, a content creator for the NRG brand, is also a Radiant-ranked coach who does a YouTube series where he does live coaching and reviews for viewers who are VALORANT players. In one of his most recent updates, he coaches an Omen player in Diamond Two, and one of his biggest focal points is what to do during save rounds on both attack and defense.
During a save round in VALORANT, a team chooses not to buy full armor, weapons, and abilities, and are saving enough so that they can buy full in the following round. The goal for these rounds, as Jollz explains, shouldn’t be to win the round given how unlikely it is. The goal in saves should be to get at least one kill (to get closer to an ultimate), to take a gun out of the enemy’s hands and deal economy damage, or to take a gun with you into the next round.
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For those reasons, on attack, Jollz suggests to “play ratty.” Rather than clumping up and rushing a site, pairs of attacking players should stick together and play sneaky angles, forcing defenders to get antsy or aggressive. This is especially viable on maps with long corridors leading to sites. Pistols or Stingers on a save just aren’t going to compete with Vandals and Operators, so holding these “ratty” angles is the way to go. Plus, in a situation where there’s a trade, the attacking team on the save ends up with a rifle while the opposite team loses one.
On the defensive, Jollz does advise teams on a save round to stick together and pick a site for them to stack on. It’s a gamble play, but it’s a better choice than leaving players alone without proper weapons, armor, or abilities. If the attacking team comes to the site that’s stacked, you have a better chance of getting kills, stopping a plant, or picking up weapons. If they go to another site, you and your team can at least rotate together and try and get exit kills or bullrush the site.
In general, it’s hard to win save rounds. But by keeping to these strategies on attack and defense, you can guarantee some more economic damage to the other team, secure a few extra rifles for free, and potentially even win a round or two once in a while that you had no business winning.
