Do Not Pick: How Deadlock Became Valorant's Worst Agent

should I make the case that this character actually might be riots worse agent on release not every agent in valorant is created equally some are broken on release whereas others just take time to find their place within the meta but every once in a while an absolute trash heap of an agent comes out and players think they are just terrible and Riot's latest blunder is none other than deadlock she's really inefficient to play on attack she's not really a sentinel you think that look who you picked absolutely bad but is deadlock really the worst agent in the game and more importantly is she actually a symptom of a bigger issue laughs [Applause] all right so before we talk deadlock and balance agent design I must humbly request that you please like the video subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications I promise it really helps alright so back in June Riot revealed valorent's 23rd agent deadlock at Masters Tokyo classified as a sentinel deadlock was poised to shake up a meta that was mostly dominated by killjoy all year but Riot didn't want her to feel like just your average everyday Sentinel a lot of our Sentinels require a lot of setup you know you've got your like small window before the round starts where you're like running around your area setting everything up and be like super stressful anxiety ridden and then no one shows up on your site no one shows up on your location you get like a little sad and you're like all right let me take down my stuff let me move on over here um and so we wanted to create a sentinel that is more about reacting to the situation at hand how do you stall on the Fly how do you prepare yourself in a certain position to be able to take advantage of enemies that are slowed down in some way and initially deadlock looked promising when Ryan released gameplay footage of her later that month it was obvious that they'd achieved what they'd set out to do Deadlock's kit was definitely unique she had sensors that were triggered by Audio and could concuss enemies while her signature ability was a wall that blocked players from moving through it she also had a grenade that forced players to crouch which in turn slowed them down so far so good right but it was her alt Annihilation that really stood out it was a pulse of nanowires that could bounce off walls and capture the first enemy it hit putting them in a cocoon and pulling them back to the point of origin if your teammates didn't free you before you reached the end you would die and once everyone all saw that they lost their [ __ ] minds what what the [ __ ] is this he's turning into a tornado fully cocooned that player will be instantly killed if they get pulled to the end so you're telling me I can just get a free kill everything around I'm playing with agent every single game if you're not would be one you just to win but as more players got their hands on the agent and some of the hype started to die down everyone realized that deadlock might not have been as good as they initially thought should I make the case that this character as she might be riots worse agent on release I don't know how you can make it work with her being your only Sentinel it feels like she's really bad at holding the flank if I play against one I just walk Flank In the entire game I feel like this no other piece of utility that does less than this grenade because the grenade what it does it literally makes people Crouch that's it Deadlock's wall is decent at locking down areas and Pistol rounds and can be an asset on the defensive side but aside from that it can be difficult to find Value in using it her wall lacks the versatility of something like a sage wall which at least allows you to stand on top of it and make a unique plays with its verticality Deadlock's gravnet can occasionally be useful when comboed with other utility but by itself forcing players to crouch isn't all that great and it's pretty easy to dodge too but worst of all are her Sonic sensors since they're only triggered by Audio you can't just throw them onto walls and expect to gain info players can simply walk past undetected if you're not watching and even if the sensors do get triggered any half decent player with good enough reaction time will shoot them before they get stunned and if for some reason they do get stunned it isn't really that big of a deal we've all seen what pros and players with Crispy aim can do while can cussed one enemy remaining at the time of writing this Deadlock's pick rate in matchmaking is only 2.1 and her win rate is 48.8 percent according to valorant tracker and some of you are probably wondering if any of that actually matters agents can be plenty good and just not get picked and ranked since people just want to lock in in Reina and jet and run it down but valorant Champions just ended and we went to the entire tournament without seeing a single deadlock You could argue that since deadlock has only been out for a few months maybe teams just aren't willing to risk trying to incorporate her into their comps before the biggest event of the year but it's not exactly abnormal to see an underdog team try to catch their opponents off guard with a pocket pick even when yoru was widely considered one of the worst agents in the game he saw a play on the international stage but with deadlock Pros seem to think that she's literally unplayable for the entire season I was with NRG right and set and the whole core they're known for the cookage you know what I mean they they be cooking Gekko came out joru all this stuff right we experimented with all these agents the one agent we never even thought about touching was deadlock we didn't even there wasn't even even a discussion about it the doctors can't compete with the other agents in The Meta right now it just it really can't yo you have flashes you have deception it adds this adds another layer to your game gecko allows you to play a different type of play style where you are playing with more guns out like paper x what is deadlock gonna do on T side now when Ryan announced deadlock they made it very clear that they wanted her to field different from the other Sentinels the problem is that she just can't fulfill her role on the attacking side except what exactly is that role like what are Sentinels supposed to do on Attack well as it happens our good buddy Colton would love nothing more than to walk us step by step through the various guiding philosophies of valorence agent rolls isn't that right Colton and now the guy who actually knows what he's talking about Valor and agents have roles okay okay I do at least know that much and while I don't know a ton about Valor and agents Nile's actually the one who wrote this so in this instance he's the guy who knows what he's talking about according to Riot Sentinels are defensive experts who can lock down areas and watch flanks both on attacker and Defender rounds but deadlock can't reliably watch flanks and prevent pushes the same way that Cipher or killjoy can with their trip wires and other utility it's pretty common for agents who share the same role to have similar utility but usually they have somewhere that they specifically Excel but deadlock just doesn't at this point it's pretty obvious that she either needs some pretty serious Buffs or a whole ass rework to even be a useful agent basically everything in her kids needs to be better wall needs to be more consistent more flexible and just be easier to throw down and just consistently know for a fact that when you throw it it's gonna land and block officer and choke gravnet last longer Sonic sensor either go off instantly or just not off sound just off-site deadlock is the worst agent to ever be released like it's the first agent that I couldn't even like try to lie to my viewers and be like hey well maybe you're just playing it wrong you know what I mean like I was able to say it with Gekko I was able to stay with your room and be like hey well maybe you guys are just approaching it the wrong way no deadlock is just fresh valrant has seen its fair share of weak agents over the past few years but none of them really come even close to being this bad but all hope isn't lost for deadlock Riot still has plenty of opportunities to fix her they've already made changes to a bunch of agents to kick off the VCT offseason and with a new duelist planned for release later this year there's no doubt that we'll see at least some shift in The Meta if it's one thing that Riot loves it's shaking things up which isn't necessarily a bad thing in this case they've been pretty good at listening to the community so far and who knows maybe they're already working on some changes that would bring deadlock back into the fold so let's do a little Theory crafting you valorum players what changes would you actually want to see made to deadlock I'm always in the comments so let me know and that was the guy who actually knows what he's talking about okay so it's relatively obvious that deadlock still hasn't found her way but why should we care so much about bringing her into the meta well I think a lot of players are just bored heard of seeing killjoy in nearly every single agent cop The Sentinel meta as a whole has become pretty stale sure you see the occasional Cipher but even Sage Israeli played we are at a critical moment for this game valorant's biggest competitor is about to release a long anticipated Sequel and three years in the game needs new and creative ideas now more than ever ride has continuously shown that they want valorent to differentiate itself from Counter-Strike so they release these unique agents who don't just have your standard flashes smokes or molotovs but by the virtue of being different this approach also has created a problem that has plagued the game since its release simply put sometimes riot overcooks Wild someone cooked here still Valor needs new things to keep the game fresh even if it takes a while to balance and massage these unique characters into well-rounded agents that can be a part of the future I definitely really really really really really really really really really really hate a chamber I wasn't playing ranked anymore like I had long stop playing right I was only playing unranked and if they picked chamber in unranked I would just dodge the lobby I just like genuinely had no desire I I'm not I'm not gonna die to some wannabe bronze Kenny s it's just so cringe

Channel: theScore esports

Views: 403,149

Keywords: esports, gaming, theScoreesports, thescore, valorant, deadlock, tenz, thinking man's valorant, demon1, eg valorant, valorant champions, vct, valorant agents, cypher, killjoy, valorant sentinel, riot games, league of legends, counter strike, cs2, csgo, shanks valorant, ange1, navi valorant, eg pottter, hiko, yoru, sentinels valorant, gekko, valorant montage, valorant new agent, valorant gameplay, valorant cinematic, valorant new bundle, valorant gekko, valorant intergrade, deadlock valorant

Id: LFbXTBq2GbU

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 23 2023