"I think specific roles Riot has listed for agents don't mean much to us": 100 Thieves Valorant pro Hiko

100 Thieves is one of the top Valorant teams from the North American region who made it to the VCT Stage 3 Berlin quarterfinals but lost to Team Envy.

The team is comprised of a set of four experienced players with a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) background, along with teenage gamer Peter "Asuna" Mazuryk. Since winning First Strike North America in 2020, the team has gone through a lot of ups and downs.

On Stage 3 of the Valorant Champions Tour, they came back stronger than before, given the tough competition of some of the top international Valorant rosters. However, after losing to Team Envy, they missed their chance to make it to the Valorant Champions 2021, through VCT circuit points. Now 100 Thieves have to fight in the Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQ) to make it to the Champions.

100 Thieves focus more on intel and taking aggressive fights, which makes initiator and controller an integral part of their team's agent composition. Spencer "Hiko" Martin, who is one of the top players in the team, is known for his brilliant Sova and Viper plays.

Hiko has won some critical clutches for the team, and contributed to the success of the team in every match. He has been effective in both the initiator and controller roles.

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100 Thieves' Valorant pro Hiko speaks about the team's agent composition

Recently, during a VCT post-match press conference, he opened up about the reasoning behind the teams' triple initiator and double controller agent composition to Pratiti Dhang of Sportskeeda Esports.

Spencer "Hiko" Martin said:

"I think the specific roles Riot has listed for agents don't really mean much to us, especially the way that we have different people playing those agents."

He continued:

"For example, when we have Ethan play Skye, I feel like most people kind of agree that Skye is more of a duelist than she is an initiator. I don't even know what she's considered. I think she's an initiator, but that said, running a single duelist, were we put ourselves in positions where, yes, there are a lot of times where Asuna is kind of running in there, and dashing in first."

Hiko further explained the 100 Thieves' understanding of Valorant meta by saying:

"But that's just the way the meta in our mind works is that your Jett can dash into a site, throw smoke on the ground, live in those smokes. And by the time, for everybody else to kind of pull up the backline three Masters, one of the Masters to it didn't really work out as well as we wanted. I think now with KAY/O and the Skye, I think we've finally found winning recipes to make a single Jett work."

Hiko added:

"A lot of our utility and everything goes to support Jett who is going into the site, and we're darting, Skye's flashing, or we're smoking for him. It might look like he's running in a lot at first, but a lot of the time we're literally all supporting him."

Asuna is mostly seen playing the role of duelists like Reyna and Jett during the tournament. Whereas, the rest of the teammates focus on controlling the map and gathering information about the enemies.

However, 100 Thieves' Hiko believes that his team focuses more on the agent and its abilities than its role assigned by the Riot Games.

Nevertheless, 100 Thieves will have their last opportunity to qualify for Valorant Champions 2021 through VCT Last Chance Qualifiers North America. It will be interesting to see the team's performance to secure a spot in the Valorant Champions.