Their pick rate might be one of the lowest among most VALORANT competitive ranks and overall game modes, but there’s no denying that one of the game’s most recognizable duelists has had the hottest start of any agent among Radiant players in 2023.
Just a few weeks into VALORANT Episode Seven, Phoenix leads the pack of agents picked in Radiant matches of competitive in win rate, with a win percentage of 56.2 percent, the highest of any agent during any act this year, according to stats site Blitz.gg. He also has the fourth overall rating in both K/D and Average Combat Score, despite his status as the eighth least picked agent.
Despite currently holding the highest win rate of any agent in Radiant during 2023, Phoenix isn’t new to winning at the highest tier of in-game competitive VALORANT. Phoenix also ended both Act One and Act Three of Episode Six with the highest overall win percentage of any agent and finished third only a few percentage points behind Sage and Reyna in Act Two. Throughout all three acts of Episode Six, and so far through the first couple weeks of Episode Seven, he’s proven to be one of the winningest agents of Radiant play.
But why is the gap between his pick rate and his win rate so large? For top mechanical players brimming with confidence during Radiant games, Phoenix is an excellent agent to wield: He can create space with his Blaze wall and initiate executes with a Curveball flash that’s hard to dodge. Hot Hands is a very versatile piece of gear, providing use as a grenade that can clear out hiding spots and as a healing tool for Phoenix.
The low pick rate might be explained by his ultimate, considered one of the weaker ones compared to those of other agents. Run It Back is very situational and has a higher chance of being wasted while providing little to no value compared to other agents. His low pick rate could also be attributed to role issues: Phoenix provides a little bit of duelist, initiator, and even controller with his wall, but ranked players are more likely to pick an agent that excels at one of those roles rather than an agent that does a little bit of everything.
Related: VALORANT’s ranked system explained
Still, the numbers don’t lie, and at the highest rank of competitive VALORANT right now, Phoenix is king.
