No Pick & Ban System in Valorant

In a new Ask VALORANT, Riot Games confirms that it doesn't intend to introduce a system of pick & ban in Valorant.

For players who are not familiar with this system, the Pick & Ban is a method of character selection at the start of the game where teams can prohibit the use of a few characters. Each side then completes its team by selecting in turn a character from those still available.

This is a system found in League of Legends, but which Riot doesn't find suitable for Valorant. Banning an Agent would limit the strategies available to teams too much, as the teams are already very dependent on the player and the map. Banning an Agent would almost ban a player.

We want players who are exceptional at certain agents to be able to play them and show off their skills with them.

Trevor Romleski, Senior Game Designer

With only 11 Agents available, such a system is not possible anyway. Unlike League of Legends, the concept of Counter Pick doesn't exist. It's also possible to have the same Agent on the same team, which is hardly possible with a pick & ban system.

All this sounds pretty obvious, but having clarifications was still important. If the question made its way into an Ask VALORANT, it's probably the translation of another problem. For the past few weeks, players have been worried about the popularity of Sage. More recently, Reyna has stood out for her ability to knock out entire teams. However, let's remember that TSM won the Valorant Showdown without playing Sage during the final.

The question might reappear in a few years. With 6 new Agents per year planned, the strategic panel could develop.