Given the chance to ban agents, most Valorant players would instantly ban Reyna and Cypher despite other agents dominating the pick rating.
Valorant has yet to have a feature like the title of fellow Riot Games, League of Legends, to ban agents in each game. While Valorant’s current 24-agent pool is far from LoL’s Champion count that passed the 100 mark, the first-person shooter’s growing roster leaves the possibility of Agent bans.
This possibility has been a long-time discussion among Valorant players, with some agents being a salient pick among must-ban agents. Most recently, it seems Valorant players have agreed that Reyna and Cypher are the ones everyone tries to stay clear of.
On a discussion thread on X by Valorant Updates, many players have expressed their strong feelings on banning the famed solo-queue duelist and the solo-hold sentinel.
While the reasons behind their disdain for Reyna and Cypher differ, it seems like some elements and factors stand out as a common ground for both agents. The ability to skew the game’s tempo with only one agent in what is supposed to be a team fight game is always a sore feeling for most Valorant players.
Given Reyna’s minimal orb count for her ultimate, high-fragging Reyna mains may use her seemingly endless healing ultimate nearly every other round.
This means that smurfing players in low elo with great mechanics compared to their enemies will always have an edge with seemingly low stakes.
While some players have perfectly reasonable motives behind banning Reyna, some have the same mentality behind Draven’s soaring bans in League of Legends. Reyna instalockers are infamous for playing their own tempo and not according to the team’s decision, which is still honestly a viable reason to ban the agent.
Meanwhile, the reason behind player “hatred” for Cypher is pretty much self-explanatory – the Agent is currently the strongest Sentinel pick after continuous Chamber and Killjoy nerfs. Especially on maps like Split and Ascent, rushing a site seems impossible whenever there’s a Cypher on the enemy team.
While these two agents are on the top picks for ban-worthy agents, they are far from running Valorant’s current meta. Omen and Viper (who will soon fall victim to a chamber-level nerf) currently own the spotlight on high-ranked competitive games and pro play.