After watching First Strike Korea and First Strike North America, I analyzed some plays that were interesting and showcased game sense and the evolution of Valorant from the early days.

Examples are shown here: https://youtu.be/uMi54Fs4Yiw

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1. Learn Timings of Abilities and Smokes
2. Fight for ability orbs/pressure those areas at beginning of the round
3. Coordinate/Combine certain abilities with your teammates
4. Have a lurker apply pressure (mainly on attack)
5. Light Buy 3rd round if your team won the first two rounds of the half
6. Frenzy has become more meta in pistol round - at least in Korea
7. Breach is one of/the best agent for post-plant

Learning Timings of Abilities and Smokes

By learning/memorizing the timings of abilities and smokes, this will let you coordinate with your team for strategic pushes or allow you to position yourself and utilize the smokes/abilities to your advantage.

Some examples:

• Main example in the video is 100T Asuna using his boombot 2 seconds before the dark cover fades which makes T1 Spyder adjust his aim and is not prepared when the dark cover goes away and Asuna appears and gets the frag on T1 Spyder.
• Jett Smoke and Cypher Cage lasts for 7 seconds - can use these to cover yourself while you stick the bomb.
• Run it Back (Phoenix Ult) and Showstopper (Raze ult) both last for 10 seconds. Once you hear the voice line, look up at the match timer to know when these will expire.
• For defusing, look at table below. Use this information to know when to shoot your abilities on the spike or how long it will last for for you to start defusing.

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Fight for ability orbs/pressure those areas at beginning of the round

Ultimates are game changers which is why I noticed teams are constantly fighting for them. Teams are throwing down a ton of utility at the start to gain control of the area or to pressure the area to deny the enemy team the orb.

When playing default, try and have your team apply pressure to those areas. If you also know that the enemy is not there, try and pick it up for free (mainly on defense) before rotating.

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Coordinate/Combine certain abilities with your teammates

Combine your abilities with your teammates abilities, below are some common combinations I have seen in competitive and also in First Strike.

• Breach Flash/After Shock with Jett Dashing in
• Sova Drone followed up by Raze nade/ultimate
• Breach ultimate with Raze ultimate - easy way to secure kills
• Raze boombot with a flash (Breach, Reyna, Phoenix)

Also use your ultimates/abilities to apply pressure to a site and to also cover the sound of footsteps. In the video example, Vision Strikers are pushing towards B-site with just 3 members. They have Sova use his ultimate and Jett to dash in throwing smokes to cover site along with a dark cover on elbow to really sell this push. Breach takes TP but this can be considered a fake TP by Omen which makes TNL over rotate and waste time getting ready to retake site. VS are able to plant at A-Site and have optimal post plant positions due to TNL reacting slowly and are able to secure the win.

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Have a lurker apply pressure (mainly on attack)

On attack, have a teammate play the role of lurker. This person will apply pressure and make noise at one site which can confuse the enemy. This person does not need to fully engage the defending team.

If the rest of the attacking team have setup for an execute onto the other site, this will cause the defending team to rotate. The lurker will be able to possibly get a free pick or a free site which then the rest of the attacking team can rotate. The attacking team could also play more mindgames and pretend to rotate to the lurker but then go back to the other site.

This lurker role was played perfectly by Subroza during Map 1 of TSM vs ENVY. Every round Subroza will apply pressure to B-Site. Round 9 played out exactly as I mentioned in the above paragraph - TSM threw down a bunch of smokes on A-Site while Subroza was still in B-Main. With the combination of Omen Ult and Subroza spamming through the smoke to break market doors, ENVY rotated back towards B-Site after not hearing anything in A-Main. This allowed for TSM to get a free bomb plant and round.

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Light Buy 3rd round if your team won the first two rounds of the half

I noticed this in my competitive games in Diamond/Immortal, but also have seen pro teams start to do this as well - mainly Vision Strikers.

If your team wins the first two rounds of the half, most of the time your team should just buy light on the 3rd round. This means having your credit balance to be at least 2000 when the round starts since if you lose the round, you get 1900 credits which will get you full armor + phantom/vandal next round.

Vision Strikers like to will also opt for a spectre on full-buy rounds to save more money, but this could just be due to them having confidence and knowing that they can win duels with their smg and take the enemy's guns.

Frenzy has become more meta in pistol round - at least in Korea

The frenzy has become a more popular pick for pistol rounds and rounds after. The frenzy allows players to:

• Spray at multiple enemies running in
• Run & Gun with decent accuracy to get a kill
• Massive aimpunch when shot in head

Breach is one of/the best agent for post-plant

Breach (imo) is one of the best agents for post-plant scenarios. In the video example, Stax is able to hold of the enemy on A-Site Ascent with his abilities. His aftershock covers the entire area, he uses his flash which allows Rb to peek and get easy kills, and his concuss also goes into heaven when he is underneath.

This is just one specific example of how Breach is able to hold off the enemy, however playing Breach requires the player to coordinate with his team which may be more difficult in Solo Queue/Ranked.

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Thanks for reading/watching. Please feel free to provide any comments/feedback and hope that this was knowledgeable.