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Valorant’s new game mode called Team Deathmatch (TDM) is set in one of three new maps, designed after the maps Ascent, Split, and Bind. This is a game mode that focuses on fragging, and despite the popularity of self-sufficient duelists, it is advisable to pick other roles for overall versatility and to maximize your team’s potential.
Valorant still revolves around tactics, and with the trend of duelists dominating TDM, it makes it even easier to counter this type of enemy lineup, as they have little adaptability. Choosing a balanced variety of roles, just like in a normal game, will give your team an upper hand regarding versatility while enforcing tactics targeting hot-blooded duelists. This could include baiting out their abilities, setting up crossfires, holding angles, and using ability combos.
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This article lists which ability combos would help you dominate this new game mode by securing frags or other objectives.
Valorant guide: Best ability combos in Team Deathmatch
1) Viper’s Toxic Screen + Phoenix’s Curveball
Viper pretty much has the most underrated abilities in TDM right now because of their versatility and high uptime compared to other abilities. However, this high uptime comes with a specific gameplay of just holding angles and playing it safe as dying would remove your wall and orb from the map and put the abilities on cooldown. This means that as long as you stay alive, you can keep reusing your smokes to help your team reach the target objective.
Viper can also be played more aggressively by using only your wall or your orb each time so that one ability can be used at any point in the match as long as you don’t die too fast. This makes it so that one ability stays on cooldown and gets to be used the next time you enter the battlefield after you die.
Viper’s Toxic Screen or wall is one of the most punishing smokes in the game as it affects not only the enemy’s vision but also their health when they cross it, making them vulnerable to attacks if they try to push it. On the other hand, Phoenix’s Curveball Flash has one of the lowest wind ups in the game and has a decent blind time as well.
This ability combo is one of the hardest to react to, especially with everything going on in TDM, where everyone is on the battlefield as the respawn time is as fast as 1.5 seconds. It is also possible to use Viper’s Poison Cloud on a chokepoint near the enemy spawn for Phoenix to stay inside and gun for kills, while also having the option to flash outside the smoke and get easy frags.
Aside from this, considering Viper’s uptime on smokes even after nerfs, she can still make it so that getting weapons spawns, ultimate orbs, and recovery orbs would be easier for your team. Either you or your teammates can get these objectives behind the safety of your wall, while this same wall can also be used offensively by having a teammate flash out the other side.
2) Cypher’s Trapwire + Chamber’s Headhunter
Since TDM’s main focus is on getting frags, players usually overheat after one kill and immediately run to hopefully get more. This is where Cypher’s Trapwire, more commonly known as trips, shines the most. With the small size of the maps in this game mode, it is almost guaranteed that these trips will always have a victim, and considering all the options for seeking cover around the map, Chamber can easily capitalize on this by using his Headhunter ability.
TDM focuses not only on getting frags but also on keeping yourself alive, which makes being able to gather information behind cover important, while also highlighting the strength of high-penetration weapons such as the Sheriff, the Ares, and Odin. These guns sometimes appear in stages but would always be absent in stages one and four. With this information, Cypher and Chamber can secure kills easily and safely behind cover, especially in these stages.
This strategy can also work with other initiators with sensors such as Sova and Fade, but the panic and confusion caused by a trip gives you a better chance of securing a frag while preserving your own life.
3) Neon’s High Gear + Omen’s Paranoia
Aside from getting frags in Valorant, map control is also a vital aspect in this game mode, especially considering how small the map is. This includes being able to control more than 50% of the map to hog ultimate orbs and turn the tide using ultimates, or recovery orbs to immediately get back to battle instead of being an easy target with low HP.
This also allows you to get the coveted weapon spawns that usually include weapons you only get from higher stages or even weapons you normally can’t get from your spawn, like the Odin and the Operator.
Neon’s High Gear allows for fast movement that would allow her to take multiple orbs within a short time frame. It also allows her to return to battle faster once she dies. Overall, it speeds up the pace of her team and allows her teammates to exercise more map control for a better chance of winning. Meanwhile, Omen’s Paranoia briefly reduces the vision range of all players it touches while deafening them.
With the distinct audio cue that Neon’s footsteps have with High Gear, Paranoia makes it possible for her to stay undetected as she sprints near enemies to get kills. Although this works with Omen, this can also work with most initiators with sight or movement impairments, such as Breach and Gekko.
Valorant’s TDM calls for agents with strong fragging potential, even by themselves, but certain ability combos make it even better to play around this game mode. Aside from making the gameplay more exciting as opposed to just choosing self-sufficient duelists, ability combos from Agents of different roles perform just as well or even better while also offering more team flexibility and versatility to combat enemy tactics.
It is important to note, however, that ability combos usually do not become successful in one try as it requires communication and coordination between players. This is even more evident in Valorant's new TDM, as it is a very compact game mode with a smaller map and less time to relay information to others.
