Valorant: New Agent Reyna and ability revealed

After days of waiting, Riot Games has finally given us a first look at the new Valorant agent,along with her in-game abilities and possibly a new map.

Agent 11 or Reyna is shown to be a Mexican, one-woman-army with some of the most amazing 1v5 clutching abilities. In her brief Agent trailer we see how insanely powerful she can be when played right; however, much like Jett and Phoenix, she too is going to be a duelist and have a ‘high risk and high reward’ type of a playstyle etched into her kit.

We didn't end up doing a gameplay trailer for Reyna, so I'll help clarify her kit a bit. Reyna is feast or famine, and a big "get frags" agent. Two of her abilities require Soul Orbs to cast, which are only spawned when *Reyna* kills a player. They only last a few seconds (1/X)

— Morello (@RiotMorello) May 30, 2020

Though Riot is yet to reveal much details about her abilities, there is a lot in her trailer that we can decipher. Additionally, Valorant’s character design lead, Morello has also tweeted about some of the details in her kit as Riot hasn’t released a gameplay trailer yet, so there was indeed a lot of confusion about what her kit does.

Rayna’s Abilities in Valorant

REYNA /// Mexico"What hope do these criaturas have?"#VALORANT pic.twitter.com/inO8bR5cto

— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) May 30, 2020

In the trailer we can see that Reyna is collecting something like a ‘Soul Orb’ after killing an enemy Cypher. These Orbs are the most important part of her kit, as it dictates the use of some of her abilities, but she will have to collect the orb soon after killing an enemy or it will disappear very fast.

These orbs act as charges for two of her signature moves, one of which will allow Reyna to heal herself, while the other can create a sort of an ‘eye orb’ that seems to blind enemies who are affected by it..

According to Morello, “These abilities allow her to heal her health to full (including "overhealing" up to 50 armor) or turn invulnerable and unable to shoot for a few seconds. They share charges.”

Snapshot from trailer Snapshot from trailer Snapshot from trailer

Reyna’s Tactical Ability which is the ‘eye orb’ seems like it can blind her enemies, and she can also suspend it in mid air and pass it through walls.

Her ultimate is called ‘Empress’. It enhances all of her Soul Orb abilities along with her shooting and reloading. Morello says that, “Her ult gives her faster firing/reload/recoil mod and resets on kill. Also enhances her Soul Orb skills.”

So, to keep her ultimate going, she needs to constantly kill her enemies and keep her ability bar topped up.

High risk and high reward in Valorant

From the revealed information about her kit, we can safely assume that Reyna is going to be an agent with one of the highest skill expressions. She will definitely be more successful in high elo as her kit makes her completely useless if she doesn’t get any kills.

So this kind of makes her a more ‘high risk, high reward’ Agent than both Jett and Phoenix, as they at least have some form of CC and mobility at their disposal; Phoenix straight up gets a second life with his ultimate.

In a reply to a comment in his post Morello said that, “Reyna has the potential to pop-off like no one else, avoiding being traded on or healing so you have to beat her square-up each time. If she doesn't get kills, though, she's BAD. Like, near-useless. You're making a big bet picking Reyna.”

Reyna might just turn out to be the Yasuo of Valorant, and either a player is going to be insanely good on her, or so bar that it starts to make the rest of the team rage and report her for trolling.

Players will need to have an extremely aggressive playstyle when piloting her, or she will be absolutely useless in the long run.

Reyna’s lore in Valorant

Out of all the 11 agents who are going to be available during the official release, Reyna seems to have the most sinister and blood-thirsty of personalities. In the trailer when she kills the enemy Cypher, we can hear her say the words “give me your heart”, so it’s quite possible that she has a background as a hit-man.

Her name Reyna, means ‘queen’ in Spanish, she seems to have come from Mexico, with a trigger-happy mentality.

While casting her ultimate Empress, we can hear her say, “they will suffer”. She repeats the same line when she gets a kill while her ultimate is active as well.

Upon collecting an orb after killing an enemy, we get a glimpse of how blood-thirsty Reyna can be, as she keeps chanting “more, more” with every kill and collection.