‘Not enough counterplay’: VALORANT players suggest changes to ‘overbuffed’ agent

VALORANT’s meta never stays stagnant, thanks to Riot Games regularly adding updates and keeping it fresh. Unfortunately, agent updates may not always be balanced. For example, Patch 7.09 brought meta-stirring changes to Cypher’s Trapwires, making him an unavoidable sentinel—and players naturally aren’t delighted about the terror he inflicts.

On Reddit, a player stirred a major discussion on Cypher’s reign in the current state of VALORANT, stressing how crucial it is to pick the Moroccan spy on most maps. Calling him “obviously the best sentinel currently,” they highlighted the unarguable benefits of picking Cypher—unranged traps and lots of intel—over other sentinels like Chamber and Sage. “I think they nerfed Chamber and Sage more than they should have,” the post concluded, insisting that it’s time to adjust the weaker sentinels to reduce the “overuse” of Cypher.

As expected, most players agreed with this sentiment, calling out Riot for overbuffing Cypher with his last update. In fact, ranked VALORANT games have come to a point where all players can think about in the agent select screen is having someone on their team who can break Trapwires. Team compositions and maps don’t matter anymore as long as we have an agent like Raze, Sova, or KAY/O who can counter the spy. 

Interestingly, some players were not too sure about whether Cypher should get a nerf. According to them, it’s very easy to break his Trapwires. “He is not like KJ where you can place things literally anywhere for info and has nanos that can be used as mollies. Once countered, Cypher is almost useless in terms of utils,” one player wrote—and truth be told, it does make sense. Killjoy has a few advantages over Cypher, letting you use her kit much more creatively to dodge counterplay. Cypher’s trap placements are slightly easier to predict. 

Then again, why the crucial discussion of which agents to pick for a ranked VALORANT match shouldn’t be all about countering one agent is self-explanatory. Cypher is undoubtedly getting a lot of undivided attention in the current ranked (Episode eight) and pro play meta. But after making a comeback from the dust, he doesn’t deserve a complete obliteration.