The VALORANT ranked system allows players to queue up solo, or with another player in the higher elo brackets. In order to practice optimal habits, it is essential to learn how to maximize your gameplay with one other player in ranked. As you climb the ranks, you will not be allowed to queue with more than one player, making your synergy and playmaking potential with your duo very important.
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In this series of articles, we are going to be looking at the best duo Agent combinations to pick with your own duo partner!
Bind
Bind is a two-bombsite map in the Active Map Pool that features a unique gimmick called the Teleporters. These teleporters allow the players to quickly rotate from either B-Long to Outside A-showers, or from A short to Outside B-hookah. These are unidirectional teleporters which are important to the ethos of how Bind is played. In order to increase your output as a duo, you will be quite often required to play in and around the teleporters, to catch players off guard and to increase your playmaking potential on the map Bind.
Bind features 4 main choke points around which fights and plays can be undertaken, A-short, Shower, B-Long and Hookah. It is important to maintain control over a chunk of these chokepoints as these will be a gateway for you to take initiative in the round and make plays both on Defense and on Attack. Maintaining control of both chokepoints with linked Teleporters will help a lot, as you can help your team from across the map and make fast rotations based on the state of the round.
For example if you have a Skye playing B-long, and you have a heavy shower setup on A site, then you can make a fast rotation from B-long to Shower with your B players and help shutdown the opponents shower setup/players. It is of significant importance to make good use of these teleporters when making plays, as that is the gimmick of the map Bind. However many plays can be made without them, but the Teleporters just help in adding a degree of variability and surprise.
Best Duo Agent Combinations For Bind
Raze and Fade
Raze and Fade right now are one of the top duelists and initiators in the game right now. As of the current state of the game, they are a must pick on Bind. Raze and Fade combined with some very interesting utility set combos, which have made them very creative as a pick.
They also serve the general dynamic of the Duelist-Initiator combo that we see throughout most duos, that of the Duelist go W off of some utility of the Initiator. Fade’s prowler is one of the best tools in the game for this reason, and with a good haunt to combine with that you could clear 90% of the tricky angles of a bomb-site, or a section of the map, and isolate the selected fights the duelist wants to take.
One simple way to use the most common utility combo of both agents is the Paintshells and Seize combo that we’ve seen used very effectively in many instances. One instance of it would be to deny plant on A site. This combination will delay the plant on A site significantly and buy enough time for rotations, and most importantly, if executed properly will net you a kill as well. In this utility set, the Fade will throw her Seize as shown:
As the Seize is thrown the Raze should throw her Paintshells on Default as shown. Both the lineups are quite loose and you may experiment around with using a Valorant smurf account. Or try replacing it with any other damaging utility like a Sova Shockdark, or even a Molotov sometimes:
Raze and Fade also combine in other ways; like using the Fade Haunt to clear pre-defined positions whilst taking a site, and also whilst making an aggressive move as the Defending site. The Haunt gives lots of free information and also serves as a distraction for any player playing in the exposed section of the map as well, leading to easier fights for the duelist pushing in synchronization of the utility.
Another usage of the Haunt is to make plays through smokes in chaotic situations ‘ like site hits. As a defender, if your site is being pushed onto, you can play inside of a smoke and use a Fade Haunt or a Sova recon to get a kill or two through the smoke, or even use the utility as a decoy to push the smoke with the timing it creates for you. Since players do the triple smokes on A site Bind, this is the best place to make this play. A few Haunts for these on the A site are:
It is imperative to make the most of both these agents in the queue right now as both are incredibly strong compared to their alternatives, and provide incredible value and bullish ability.
Breach and Yoru
Breach and Yoru both are quite niche picks on the map, but recently have been relatively popularized with the bang Paper Rex Esports made at international LANs. Paper Rex Esports’ Jason “f0rsaken” Susanto and Benedict “Benkai” Tan have brilliant synergy with their Yoru and Breach picks respectively.
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Most of their play revolves around the Breach stun allowing f0rsaken to take advantageous fights. This is seen in their Shower fights, where they stun all of Shower and let f0rsaken fight it out. This makes the Yoru’s duels in shower quite easier and the opposing agents are usually stunned or mobile, meaning he gets an advantage in the duel. We’ve also seen this stun be combined with Yoru Flash TPs, leaving the defenders or attackers, stupefied and unable to react to the teleport. This acn net a few clean entries for the Yoru.
One of Yoru’s biggest advantages is that you can use his Teleport as a get out of Jail free card. So when your Breach or any Initiator does your support utility for you, the Yoru, you can fight and then teleport out just as the situation starts to get out of hand. If you see too much opposing utility, or you whiffed, you can just teleport out to a safe spot you set at the start of the round.
You can even use his TP as a fast rotation tool. Once you push and take info on a certain part of the map, you can use his TP with any lineup and TP away to a distant part of the map, usually the other site to make an incredibly fast rotation and stack sites that are being hit. This will catch players off guard considerably and allow you to shutdown executes completely at times.
One of the best usages of the Yoru and Breach combo is in places like U-haul or Shower, where you are sure a player is going to be positioned and cannot dodge your stun. Once the player is identified and stunned, they can be bombarded with utility and the Yoru can teleport to catch him off guard and finish him off. If the Yoru himself doesn’t have a flash, a Breach Blinding Light can be used as a replacement for it.
The best use of the Breach and Yoru is in rounds where either of them has their ultimate. These ultimates are incredibly powerful when combined with the stalling ability and/or the mobility of the other agent in the Duo. When the Breach ult is available, Yoru can safely TP to most places on site covering lots of ground, to finish off mostly stunned enemies. When the Yoru has his ultimate up, the Breach can either ult simultaneously on Yoru’s information, or even just Stun based on the information, from which the Yoru can then exit his ultimate and finish off the debuffed player. When both the ults are comboed, it allows the Yoru to sandwich the concussed players, whilst his teammates push the area behind him.
This combination might not be the most picked in ranked or in the competitive environment, but they can catch most ranked players with their pants down. Most players have not played against enough Yoru to be able to understand the specifics of his kit and his quirks as an Agent, and this allows him to shine in an extremely chaotic ranked environment, even more so than the competitive environment where we saw it shine during Paper Rex’s matches.
Jett and Skye
Jett and Skye are the most traditional Duelist-Initiator combo on this list. Jett is still an A-tier duelist on many maps and very much viable at the top level. Skye is one of the better initiators, especially with the buffs that have been talked about. She performs her role as the generic flash-heavy supportive initiator quite well, she’s one of the best at it; maybe bar KAYO. Her Trailblazer however adds a lot of value to her kit that other agents don’t necessarily provide.
To maximize your impact as a duo, you and your partner can play the same site and focus on playing an aggressive, information seeking style; allowing you to make fast rotations and impact the sites that are actually being hit. If your site is being hit, you’ll get information early and be able to call for rotations, and also be able to setup a system on site to shut down the hit as well with your duo. A way to do this, is for example to simply flash down B-long and let your Jett player run down B-long and take a fight. If you feel like there’s heavy pressure, you can fall back and call for rotation to setup a stack before they actually manage to hit site. If not you can get a pick on the players contesting long, or even completely push up long or rotate off the info that it is uncontested.
JettHer Trailblazers are extremely strong when setting up a teammate pushing with them ‘ and can make winning a duel for the accompanying duelist very easy. Use the Trailblazer to clear pesky corners giving your duelist much more confidence in taking the fights they choose to take. It also serves as a drone that can take first contact when hitting a site, allowing your duelist to clean up on some exposed players, who may already be mid-spray. And if they choose to tank the doggy, then you can always stun them, leading to an ever easier duel for an agent like Jett, which has a gap closer. It is extremely important that the other agent who takes advantages of these drone-esque abilities, has a gap closer to speed up, take space fast and punish exposed defenders.
Jett players can dash on to site into a smoke whilst clearing a side of the site (either one) and then wait for a Skye pop-flash and then exit their smoke. This is incredibly useful and allows for some free kills on blind players on site.
Amongst many aspects of this duo’s kit, the most underrated is how this combination can basically turn your Jett into a steroidal Reyna. After you get a pick or an engagement, you must get a heal from your duo partner allowing your Jett to function almost like a pseudo Reyna, but with more mobility and variability in her kit.
Combining Jett’s ultimate with the Skye’s seekers allows for some incredibly (!) fast rounds to be played. As soon as the barriers go down, both ultimates are popped and this allows Jett to get a clear route to the first player that must be engaged. This player will have to break the Seekers or be debuffed by them, in which both scenarios, the kill will be confirmed by a Jett that can shoot accurately with full mobility. Most corners can be ignored as if the seekers don’t check them, they’re clear anyway. This allows the Jett to block the defending players attempts to setup or catch their breath on the map; forced into a situation where they either have to fight the Jett or be debuffed. The Jett with her ultimate should generally win the duel anyway due to the mobility advantage, and with the added chaos of the Seekers should pretty much seal the round with a fast entry and good position attained after the entry.
