Valorant Weekly: Killjoy and Omen break Haven, First Strike and Champions Tour

It’s a busy period in Valorant this week as First Strike is set to begin across the world, and bugs are plaguing Ranked Play. Meanwhile, Riot Games announced their plans for the Valorant 2021 season as teams are preparing their making their final preparations to enter its ecosystem.

Let’s take a look at the key topics in Valorant this week.

© PlayValorant / Esports.net

Valorant game breaking bugs

Ranked queue has seen its fair share of toxicity this week as Killjoy players managed to completely ruin games on Haven. All the way up to Immortal 2 (where we are), players have been abusing a turret interaction to win matches and annoy the entire game lobby.

You can view the game breaking bug in the video below thanks to Youtuber Satchel Jump:

The interaction has been widely used in Ranked play with no hopes of a quick Riot fix coming this week.

Another game breaking bug can be used in Haven as well, courtesy of Omen. This one is way more impactful, as it allows the agent to glitch through textures and walls entirely. We have not yet seen this bug abused in Ranked play, as its most likely it will result in an account being permabanned.

The second bug can be seen in the following video.

Finally, a recent post in Reddit has shown a mildly useful interaction with Riot’s latest agent, Skye, on Bind. The video shows by using Skye’s Q on the B mid teleporter door, Trailblazer can be used to open the door from outside.

While it is unconfirmed if this interaction had been intended by developers, or if it simply a bug, this interaction, has been confirmed by us. The interaction can only ever be useful when trying to chase down a lone enemy and prevent them from saving. It is highly likely you will trade your life for the kill, as using Trailblazer will make you vulnerable in close line of sight when the doors open.

We suspect this works as Trailblazer spawns slightly infront of Skye, and when used this way, spawns on top of the pad to open the door. Note, this interaction works for both teleporter doors on Bind.

Valorant Champions Tour announced

Riot has recently announced its plans roll out a new competitive system for its esports scene in 2021. The Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) will cover the high end competitive level of Valorant in the upcoming year. The VCT series will see teams compete regionally across a significant portion of the year, with only the top sixteen advancing to the global event.

Unlike League of Legends, participation in the Valorant Champion Tour will be public instead of a closed league membership system.

Challengers Series will serve as the first level in the Valorant Champions Tour. Teams will initially have to play in open online qualifiers, with those that qualify advancing to challenger level tournaments. The top eight teams across the region’s challenger level tournaments will advance to the Challenger Finals, and only then, have a chance to compete in the Valorant Masters event.

Performance in the Masters level tournaments will be crucial for teams wanting to advance to the Valorant Champion event. Teams in the Masters will compete for circuit points with only the top one or two teams (depending on region) across the year qualifying to play in Champions. Top regions will also have “Last Chance Qualifiers” (LCQ), an additional tournament for teams to advance directly into Champions.

You can view the entire set of plans and timeline in the following post.

Valorant Weekly Updates

The following section will provide you with news you might have missed or can be relevant to your Valorant play or viewing experience.

Prodigy Agency drops roster to avoid issues

Prodigy Agency is an esports player representation agency, taking care of general player marketing and management. The agency also had a line-up of players competing under “Prodigy” in several Valorant events. The roster had received limited attention prior, as they had only played in lower tiered Valorant tournaments. However, after repeatedly advancing in the EU First Strike qualifiers something had to be done.

To avoid any confusion or conflicts of interest with clients from other teams, the Prodigy roster has been dropped with players now playing under the tag “Orgless”. Aside from the disassociation with Prodigy, there have been no other changes, with the same line up now looking for a new organisation to sign them.

Upcoming gifting system and Deathmatch while queued

Developers had earlier revealed Valorant would also have a gifting system similar to League of Legends. Given they had projected a gifting system would be implemented “by the end of 2020”, and that patch 1.12 was a small one, we can expect gifting to be available very soon and possibly even in the next patch.

Meanwhile, Valorant developer, “tehleach”, has stated on a Reddit post, that Riot are looking to implement the ability for players to get into Deathmatch while in queue. This feature will be particularly useful for five stacks and those in the upper echelons of rank who at times, may queue upwards of half an hour. However, this may take months before we see it live as it would require a new deathmatch system to be created which considers the free flow of players that disconnect and connect to a game.

Read next: First Strike qualifier slots are filling up fast in all regions