5 Valorant agents for each map in 2021

Riot’s Tactical FPS, Valorant, offers players a great choice of agents to choose from. Every Valorant agent has a different set of abilities which makes them unique, and according to the structure of each map, their effectiveness varies. On top of that, there is a lot of synergy between agents that results in team compositions serving a crucial role in a Valorant match.

This article will go into detail about which five agents are most effective as a team composition in each of the five maps in Valorant.

Ascent: Best Valorant agents to pick

Omen - Omen has the best smoke ability in Valorant. This alone makes him a staple in any lineup. In Ascent, where mid-control is so crucial, Omen shines. He can very effectively control chokepoints in both A and B. His blind ability, Paranoia has great utility in the Valorant map.

Sova - Ascent has the most wallbangable thin walls among all maps of Valorant, so Sova’s recon bolt offers great utility. His shock dart is very useful in Ascent as well.

Jett - Ascent has some of the longest sight lines among all maps in Valorant, especially around the middle of the map, which is one of the most crucial areas to control. Jett’s dash can take over the game on defense with the Operator by controlling mid and then rotating quickly to other sites as needed. TSM Wardell’s Jett games on Ascent in First Strike Valorant are prime examples of Jett’s playstyle.

Breach - Breach pairs very well with Jett. Jett-Breach is one of the most effective agent combos in Valorant. Breach uses his flash, Jett dashes in at the exact time and kills any defenders who are blinded by Breach’s flash. Jett becomes one of the best entry fraggers in the game on the attacking side when paired with Breach.

Killjoy - Ascent is the strongest map for Killjoy in Valorant's map-pool. While on the attacking side, Killjoy’s ult covers the whole of both sites. While defending, her setups are much stronger compared to Cypher’s due to the latter really not having the best spots to place his tripwires relative to the other maps.

Split: best Valorant agents to pick

Omen - Omen overshadows all of the other controllers of Valorant right now as the default smoke pick and that has a lot to do with his Paranoia being so extremely powerful. He can control both sites with Paranoia. So, it gives him tremendous value and versatility in a team composition filling both the smoker and flasher role.

Raze - Split being a very claustrophobic map gives Raze’s AoE abilities like her grenades a ton of value. She also has a lot of good satchel boost locations that give her height advantage into fantastic ult opportunities. On top of that, her Boombot can bring value due to Split having tight corridors.

Cypher is the most popular sentinel pick for this map and Raze can function as a direct counter to him with her Boombot activating tripwires and her other AoE abilities straight-up destroying tripwires.

Breach - Breach’s effectiveness in Split is exactly due to the same reason as Omen’s. Breach’s Fault line ability is aimed in a similar fashion to Omen’s Paranoia. And those Faultline lineups serve as lineups for his ultimate as well. In fact, Split is Breach’s most powerful map by far.

Jett - She can use the Operator from the vents side of the mid to take mid control, which is again a very important concept on Split. She can also rotate extremely quickly to the A and B sites where Jett can get long-range angles overlooking enemies trying to push into the site. This allows Jett to control Mid on defense at the start of the round, then rotate and hold pushes on other sites.

Again, Cypher being a popular pick on split, Jett helps counter that with her dash ability destroying tripwires. Also Breach being a staple pick in Split, the Breach-Jett combo as mentioned earlier also comes into play.

Cypher - Split is by far Cypher’s strongest map, given the insanely powerful setups he has across the map, the most famous being his B site setup which can be extremely hard to deal with.

Bind: best Valorant agents to pick

Brimstone - Even though Omen is the go-to controller on this map as well, Brimstone can be tried to varied success. The site takes need to be done very fast on Bind and Brimstone can help do that by placing all three smokes down instantly. At the same time, Bind, among all Valorant maps, has the best layout for Brimstone’s ultimate, giving him free kills on opponents playing in Uhaul and Lamps on A site, or elbow on B site. Bind is Brimstone’s best and arguably his only viable map at the moment.

Sova - Sova’s intel gathering cannot be paralleled by any other Valorant agent. Sova shines on this map. His recon bolt paired with his owl drone basically allows him to clear entire paths and sites on attack, there letting him spot out defenders before they even know where Sova is. At the same time, on defense, he has fantastic recon bolt placements at the start of the round that can pretty much tell his team which site the enemy is going for immediately.

Cypher - Cypher is the most popular sentinel pick on Bind. He has a wide variety of B site setups that all offer a ton of strength, which he can switch up these setups between rounds making it very hard for the attackers to push into B sites without getting caught.

Also, due to the teleporters in Bind, attackers tend to take a heavy rotational playstyle, and this requires Cypher’s team to have a dedicated lurker to watch for pushes by the attackers while he executes his shenanigans.

Jett - Her extreme mobility comes in handy both in attack and defense. Also, with flashes not being so effective in Bind due to bomb site entrances having lots of small angles where players take cover, it rules out Phoenix, making Jett one of the most valued duelist picks on the map.

Raze - Valorant's most explosive agent, Raze’s AoE abilities are highly effective in Bind and it has also quite a few good spots for her satchel. So Raze is the second duelist of choice in Bind.

Haven: best Valorant agents to pick

Haven’s agent picks look very similar to Ascent’s due to both maps sharing a few of the same characteristics.

Omen - Haven has three sites compared to the two in all the other Valorant maps, which means players often rotate a lot on the attacker site. This means that multiple smokes at various times in a round have to be used in different places.

With Omen’s smokes regenerating, he is the only agent who can effectively play with or against this. The presence of a lot of verticality on Haven gives tremendous value to Omen’s teleport ability. The map is structured in such a way that Omen has a host of strong ult location that can't be cleared efficiently by the defense.

Sova - Haven having three bombsites results in the defense being spread thin. Sova can use his recon bolt at the start of the round to gather intel and then rotate defenders to stack towards whatever side of the map is most likely to be hit based on that intel.

Jett - The areas in the map having long sight lines are the most powerful to control in Haven. For example, she can stay with an Operator watching over C Long. And in case enemies don’t come there, she can rotate off to other places on the map with this high mobility. Moreover, Haven has some of the most verticality in Valorant, giving Jett a lot of valuable off angles on top of different boxes and containers.

Breach/Phoenix - Outside of Breach’s insane flash potential, again the Breach-Jett combo can be accessed. If Jett is not picked, Phoenix as a more self-sufficient agent might be a better pick.

Killjoy/Cypher - Haven is the most balanced map in terms of sentinels as no sentinel has a clear upper hand on the other.

Icebox: best Valorant agents to pick

Jett - Icebox has pretty much the most verticality of any map in Valorant. So, Jett’s updraft ends up getting an insane amount of value throughout the game.

Viper - Viper’s effectiveness in Icebox comes from the presence of all of the different angles in sites that an Omen smoke simply can’t cover. On the other hand, Viper’s wall is able to cover entire sides of sites and block all these angles at once with one ability.

Sova - Although his recon bolts don’t get a ton of value in Icebox due to the verticality and all of the different little cubbies and angles, his biggest Valorant map this Valorant map is his owl drone, which makes attacking far easier by scouting the small angles.

Killjoy/Sage - Sentinels serve a very significant role in Icebox due to the bomb sites being very far away from each other.

Reyna - The vampiric Valorant agent, Reyna, strives for isolated 1v1s, which will be created by the many smaller angles in Icebox. Her flash is also very effective in this map.