VALORANT community says one agent is the best for new players—and we agree

VALORANT Champions is bringing a lot of hype to the community due to it featuring professional players from all over the world, and for many casuals, this is the ideal opportunity to start playing VALORANT as well.

But the fact that the game has so many agents can be quite confusing for beginners as they don’t know which one is best to start playing while getting the hang of what VALORANT is. Thanks to a Reddit post on Aug. 11 with this question, though, the community seemingly reached a consensus that Phoenix is the best agent for new players—and I couldn’t agree more.

“Phoenix was fun when I started out,” one Redditor wrote. “Yes. He’s also quite simple to get the hang of, besides obviously flashing teammates,” another Redditor wrote. “Phoenix is fun bc you can get his ult very quickly even if you’re being ass blasted and overall its an easy time once you can get down the super basics of his flash,” a third Redditor wrote.

Phoenix is a beginner-friendly agent because his kit is pretty straightforward:

• Blaze (C): Casts a flame wall that blocks vision and damages anyone who tries to pass through it.
• Curveball (Q): This is essentially a flashbang. Phoenix throws an orb that curves to the left and any player who sees the orb gets blinded for 1.5 seconds.
  • It’s literally any player, meaning you can also flash your teammates, which is definitely something to avoid.
• Hot Hands (E): Phoenix throws a fireball that explodes after a small delay or upon impact with the ground. This fireball will create a fire zone that damages enemies.
  • If Phoenix stands on Hot Hands’ fire zone, he’ll heal due to its passive ability, Heating Up.
• Run It Back (X): Phoenix’s ultimate. When activated, it instantly places a marker at Phoenix’s location. If you die during Run It Back’s duration or when it expires after 10 seconds, you’ll be reborn at the marked location with full health and the amount of armor you had before casting the ultimate.

Related: Best agents in VALORANT: Ranked tier list

I personally agree with Phoenix being considered the best agent for beginners because he was the agent I played the most when I started playing VALORANT in 2020. I had a good idea of how a tactical FPS works due to all the time I spent in Counter-Strike: 1.6 and CS:GO, but I had no clue what agent to pick.

After reading about agents’ kits, picking Phoenix was a no-brainer. With Phoenix, I could make good plays for myself, such as blocking one angle with Blaze and blinding enemies with Curveball. And his ultimate Run It Back felt pretty broken at the lower ranks because it allowed me to cast it and go hunt for kills in a clutch or even entry-fragging situation and later go back to the marked spot with full HP.

That said, it’s OK if Phoenix doesn’t work out for you. At the end of the day, you should play VALORANT with an agent that suits your playstyle and, most importantly, focus on having fun. Us casuals shouldn’t stress too much with games, especially when we’re learning how to play them.