What is the ‘Poppin’ swing in VALORANT?

It’s audacious, it’s bold, and it’s the new popular VALORANT trend on major platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok.

The ‘Poppin’ swing is a great way to demotivate and demoralize your opponents whether you’re in competitive, unrated, or even warming up in deathmatch. But where did the trend come from, why is it impactful, and why should you consider using it yourself?

Let’s dive in.

What is the ‘Poppin’ swing in VALORANT?

The ‘Poppin’ swing is a method of taking on fights and angles while playing VALORANT, and effectively works as an absurdly wide peek. Rather than jiggle peeking around a corner or moving as little as possible while still establishing a shooting angle, the ‘Poppin’ swing is where you peek and just keep moving.

The name ‘Poppin’ swing comes from the YouTuber P0PPIN who first popularized the move via a collection of YouTube videos where he uses it on some of the most popular streamers and pro players in VALORANT. Now even the pros recognize and use the swing themselves during streamed matches, and it can produce great clips for social platforms like TikTok.

But how does this work? It isn’t because the people he’s playing against can’t aim; he’s using it against pro players and in Radiant queues. But at that ranked level, very few players are expecting such an audacious swing. Additionally, he does a very quick jiggle spray before the ‘Poppin’ swing, tricking the opponent into holding a close angle because he’s going to jiggle again.

On top of the mental aspect of tricking your opponents by effectively zigging while others zag, the ‘Poppin’ swing can also be helpful in improving your aim tracking ability. While warming up in deathmatch, you can see how long you can swing for while keeping your crosshair trained on your opponent’s head.