VALORANT player perfectly sums up new agent hype in 5 simple stages

While some VALORANT players are barely containing themselves and their hype about the release of Deadlock scheduled for June 27, others are taking a rather different and more analytical approach to the game, breaking down the new agent hype in five simple stages.

According to a post from VALORANT’s subreddit on June 26, new agent hype can be boiled down to five simple stages:

1. Leaks and the community belief the agent is so “hot”
2. Announcements and the idea that their kit is broken
3. Release and players already picking them up in ranked and calling themselves “one tricks”
4. The stage where no one picks the champion just because one content creator called it bad
5. The final verdict stage when the VCT players decide if the new agent fits the meta.

Related: When does Deadlock go live in VALORANT? Release date and time

Other players agreed with the obvious and logical stages of hype players go through each time a new agent is released. One player, however, added that new agents become less impactful once players learn their abilities and start shooting and reacting to their critical abilities. The best example of this was Gekko and his Wingman ability. 

Further in the comment section, the players agreed that Deadlock actually seems weak and she’ll need buffs to be a “functional Sentinel” that will make it to the VCT. Still, quite an exciting road is ahead of us with the Deadlock’s release and I hope she’ll turn out to be a rather weaker agent than an overpowered one terrorizing ranked games until Riot Games notices.