Riot Games has a long esports experience thanks to League of Legends. They perfectly know that a new character can totally unbalance the competitive metagame, which is why the live server (for everyone) and the competition server (for the pros) are quite distinct on LoL.
Valorant currently only has one server, so Killjoy is now available for all games. In order not to upset professionals and their habits too much as well as to avoid possible bugs, the next American stage of the Valorant Ignition Series will be played without the new German agent.
Avoid bugs
It takes a huge amount of work to develop a new Agent. If Riot teams try to check everything before its release, there are always possible unforeseen circumstances, especially when the character in question interacts with the map or other agents. Even the oldest Agents like Raze or Omen are not spared.
That's why, to avoid glitch problems and even conscious or unconscious exploits, Riot Games has decided to take no chances. The FaZe Clan Invitational which begins today will be played without Killjoy. Patch 1.05 being very fresh, the company does not have enough perspective and will surely not have the time to resolve a problem directly.
Respect the metagame
By making this choice, Riot Games is also showing certain respect for the pros and their training. For weeks, players trained in the hope of being up to speed in the next competitions. Disrupting the metagame and introducing a new aAent the day before such an important deadline can render all this upstream work obsolete. They must rethink strategies and take into account completely new parameters — which is not always easy for coaches or players.
Pros like Spencer "Hiko" Martin (100 Thieves) notably found Killjoy to be a bit too strong at the moment. Seeing it deactivated would be a good thing to guarantee a more serene competition. In any case, in the community, many welcomed this decision of Riot Games.
After the departure of its captain Jason "jasonR" Ruchelski, FaZe Clan needed to recruit new blood for the upcoming competitions. The team has signed a former Overwatch pro and a second one could follow.
Original content by Léo "Tipsalewo" Lecherbonnier.
