"The hunt begins!" -- Reyna
When those words ring out across the world of VALORANT, the opposition knows the Empress is on her way, looking to devour them. The queen of dividing the enemy team up and conquering them with her feast or famine kit, there has been far less famine since Reyna was released on June 2 to celebrate the game's official launch worldwide. Since then, Reyna has become of the most-picked agents in the game, her kill-or-bust playstyle providing players capable of piloting her with leaderboard-topping frags while those permanently aiming at the ground wondering what use the Mexican vampire has in the game.
While she's ruled unrated play and become a must-pick for the casual audience wanting to carry, the pros aren't overlooking her either. In the most-recent Twitch Rivals North America where T1's starting-five took home the championship, Reyna was picked over 30 times, the third-most in the entire tournament. The winning team also used her throughout the event, with Victor "Food" Wong going 4-1 on the agent during the event.
Overpowered? Only scary in casual games and/or against weaker players? ESPN reached out to the pros and streamers of VALORANT to get their unfiltered takes on the soul-stealing agent.
Victor "Food" Wong, T1
I feel like she has to take individual duels more than any other agent to get the most value out of her and she relies on winning those duels. Her Leer is most likely the best "flash ability" in the game and her invulnerability after a kill makes her extremely hard to trade, which encourages an extremely risky style.
James "Kryptix" Affleck, Fish123
I just think in general she's so overpowered if used correctly. [Her] fast entries with flash is unbelievable [and] then if she gets a kill she can heal to full plus armor. I think she 100% needs a nerf. I don't know what else to really say about her, I'm just sick of her flash, haha.
Corey "Corey" Nigra
My impression right now is that she is a noob punisher. She's quite good in solo queue because of her own self-sustain and flash, but when put against smarter players especially in a team setting, Reyna tends to have some difficulty finding value.
Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik, TSM
In my opinion, Reyna's abilities can be improved as some are kind of broken in some situations. Her ult is unreal and gives her way too big of an advantage for a LONG time and her flashes are really hard to destroy on pistol rounds. I think flashes should be 2 bullets to destroy and the ult timer should be way lower!
Oscar "mixwell" Cañellas Colocho
Reyna is the best duelist in the game, followed by Raze.
Michael "dapr" Gulino, Sentinels
She's just too strong, her flash needs to blind teammates to even it out and something has to be done about her invulnerability skill. It's too easy to take risks with an [Operator] or rifle and have the security to get out with that.
Yannick "KOLER" Blanchette, Immortals
I think Reyna at the moment is an S-tier agent. What makes Reyna overpowered is the fact she can take soul orbs from so far away. I think reducing the range of soul orb can be a nice fix. It's overpowering how far you can grab them at the moment. Flash in my opinion should get a slight nerf but it's not that overpowered as everyone says in my opinion.
Hannah "bnans" Kennedy
Reyna's a good agent, but her only real supportive ability is her eye. She's very momentum-based as she feeds off of one kill with hopes to chain it into more. Her abilities are super unique which makes her fun to play, but she's best suited for the team fragger.
Stephen "reltuC" Cutler, TSM
Reyna is good when paired with another flash type agent. Other than that I think she's kind of underwhelming and other flashing agents are just better. I think it would be better when she ults and kills someone then uses the invisible ability that she doesn't make a sound queue when she's out of it for ultimate playmaking ability, but maybe that will make her too overpowered?
Keven "PLAYER1" Champagne, Gen.G
She's a pubstomper, her abilities make her excel to carry against lower skill players. As for competitive, she's good, she can get a pick and retreat safely with her ability. She's too good in pistols because of her flash being harder to destroy with pistols and also the overheal is insane in pistol. She's an excellent duelist, in a one-on-one fight, it's really hard to win it if you're out in the open or even hiding because she can scale with her flash.
Joseph "Bjor" Bjorklund, IMT
Reyna in the hands of an incredible aimer is nuts. She's extremely strong on pistol, if she gets a kill then overheals to 150 she's basically a raid boss. Her ability to play one and done on defense and reposition for free with her E is extremely valuable.
Zachary "ZachaREEE" Lombardo
I think Reyna is pretty strong. She has one of the strongest flashbangs in the game. It's hard to deal with unless you just hide from it or have one person shooting it while another is fighting her. The heal and invulnerability are also good but are pretty balanced because you need to get a kill before using them.
Her self heal is like super good, especially on pistol rounds because you can get to 150 hp. Reyna's ult is insane if she gets a kill. The invis from her orb lets her snowball rounds really well, she can chain kills and win one-on-ones really easily with it.
Anthony "gMd" Guimond, Gen.G
I think Reyna is pretty good, she's a little bit worse in scrims/[pro] matches but I think she's a bit overpowered on pistol (takes too much bullets). Overall, I think she's pretty balanced!
Madison "Maddiesuun" Mann, Gen. G
I think she's a good agent. I like that she needs to be fragging out to use most of her abilities. There could be some tuning to her abilities. I think that her eye flash thing should take two bullets instead of three to break to give time to react. Maybe her blinding could also be less effective depending on the distance of the eye. I love playing her because I feel more confident to take gunfights.
Hayden "Elevate" Krueger, 100 Thieves
I think Reyna is really good, especially on [the defenders] side. The entire hope of Reyna is to find as many one-on-ones as possible and get advantages early. If a Reyna can do that successfully she can really throw off [the offense side's] plans and what they want to do in a match
Son "xeta" Seon-ho
This Reyna agent needs to be more aggressive to utilize her skill like gaining health or stealth. That's [how] I think she's supposed to be played, from my point of view, because her [abilities] aren't really useful unless [she] gets some kills. The player using her needs to have a lot of confidence, I think.
Adam "ec1s" Eccles, Fish123
I think Reyna can be a really strong agent to use in VALORANT just on her flash alone, but I feel like we have not seen the best of her yet. In my opinion, she will be the most effective in set rounds such as executes or set defensive pushes. I think her invulnerable ability will be used more than the healing in the future as it has way more potential by offering free information, and combined with her ultimate that makes her fully invisible is ridiculously overpowered (I didn't even know she was full invisible until mid-round Twitch Rivals final and I thought Mixwell noclipped to a different position.)
James "hazed" Cobb, TSM
Reyna's a decent character overall. She's incredibly powerful in pugs, but just mediocre in a team setting. She has the ability to take over the round by snowballing from the first kill but the issue is against good players, they won't give that up so easily. Her flash is difficult to deal with when combined with other abilities so players should try to coordinate abilities together with it.
Taylor "drone" Johnson, TSM
I think her abilities are catered to a specific kind of playstyle that requires fast decision making and high fragging, and I think her flash is best used in conjunction with other characters to be the most impactful. I don't think she's broken as she is, and I definitely believe she's viable in a competitive environment if utilized correctly.
Amgalan "Genghsta" Nemekhbayar
Reyna is balanced, she's a new agent so people don't know how to play against her yet. My initial thoughts were "wow she's kinda busted," but all her abilities are really easy to counter. I think she will be A or B-tier once people know her abilities.
Austin "AustinIRL" Neff
So far I think she's a good addition because her kit allows her to be more of that flex pick rather than an immediate replacement for Sage. Her flashes are pretty nuts and it adds another level of depth in gameplay considering it's better to shoot them than look away which is another habit to pick up for muscle memory. The only thing with her kit I'm a little bit questionable about is the overheal.
It's crazy to me that someone can get a kill as her on pistol round and be at 150 health for X amount of time, or until they die. I also think the range of being able to activate the orbs as her is pretty crazy, alongside how fast her overheal is. I'm excited to see where she fits into competitive, in scrims a lot of people have been testing the waters so it will be cool to see what people come up with!