In any team game, it’s important for everyone to have specific roles, often in the form of support or offense. In VALORANT, the current 20 agents are divided into four different roles—duelist, sentinel, initiator, and controller.
Duelists come equipped with utility that allows them to be aggressive, enter sites first, and create space for the rest of the team. They are usually expected to get a lot of kills since their biggest priority is to take as many duels as they can while their teammates might be playing more passively by blocking off entryways or healing the team.
Because they have the best utility to get kills and top frag, duelists are popular picks and often instalocked during agent selection. As of Episode Six, Act One, there are six duelists from which to choose: Reyna, Jett, Raze, Phoenix, Neon, and Yoru. Three of these duelists are among the most commonly used agents in the game, while the other three often get left behind.
Unsurprisingly, Jett, Reyna, and Raze are currently in the top four for pick rate in nearly every rank according to Blitz. In Radiant, for example, Jett sits at the top with a 15.9 percent pick rate, Reyna is third with 8.9 percent, and Raze is fourth with 8.4 percent. Jett, despite all of her nerfs, remains the most played agent thanks to her lethal knives and ability to get in and out of battles in a flash.
Reyna is another great pick because she can heal, flash, and get out of sticky situations all on her own. Meanwhile, Raze’s utility centers around blowing up everything in sight with her Boom Bot, grenades, and Showstopper ultimate.
While everyone is always fighting over who gets to play these three duelists, it’s much rarer to see the other three duelists in competitive play. When it comes to pick rate, Yoru and Neon usually sit at the bottom of the list while Phoenix is somewhere in the middle.
