Yoru in Pro Play: Key Takeaways
- Most of Yoru’s abilities require deception and misdirection.
- Yoru doesn’t have any “team-focused” abilities.
- Yoru has a very high skill requirement and needs near-flawless execution in pro play.
- PRX f0rsakeN is the only pro player who played more than 400 rounds on Yoru.
Yoru is an aggressive Duelist in Valorant that excels in flanking, lurking, and playing around with his opponents. He’s a menace when played right but is borderline useless when he isn’t.
Yoru has only been played in more than 100 rounds by 33 professional players across all Valorant registered tournaments. PRX f0rsakeN is the only player with over 300 rounds on Yoru, at a total of 429 rounds. Other than that, most players only have around 200 rounds at most.
So let’s analyze Yoru in pro play and why he isn’t played more.
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Table of Contents
High Risk, High Reward
One of the major reasons why Yoru simply doesn’t work in pro play is because he’s a high risk, high reward type of agent. Most of his plays rely on flashing before teleporting into the back line, where he can only hope that no one has dodged it.
He thrives in these environments where he infiltrates enemy lines using his Gatecrash and then tries to get kills when the enemy team is distracted. However, this type of playstyle isn’t exactly viable in the pro scene. Most pros can easily see through these types of plays and know well enough how to counter them.
Yoru Is Too Volatile
Professional play is one of the most controlled and organized type of Valorant there is. The best Valorant teams have everything calculated from the timing of abilities, when to smoke, when to flash, and when to rotate, among many different others. This is what separates it from regular ranked play.
This is as far from Yoru as can be. He can make an insane play for one round and then instantly die within the next one. Using Yoru in pro play just doesn’t work as well as using him in a Competitive queue because professionals heavily rely on better teamwork and strategies.
Not knowing what an Agent can bring to the table every single round can be a huge flaw in your team that others can easily exploit.
His Abilities Aren’t Exactly Built for Pro Play
Yoru’s abilities are centered around deception, manipulation, and misdirection. His Fakeout features fake clones, his Gatecrash is a moving teleport, and his Blindside is a flash.
All of these aren’t exactly helpful in professional play. His flash is probably the only thing that can help his team out. This is the same reason why Reyna isn’t used much at the pro level as well. It can be argued that his ult can be used as an information-gathering tool, but you can only use it every few rounds, which makes it less valuable.
There are Other Agents That Can Do What He Does
As you may know, Yoru is mainly great at lurking and flanking. His abilities are quite literally made for it. While flanking and lurking are valuable mechanics in pro play, Yoru’s greatness at them just isn’t enough to outweigh the cons.
Other agents like Omen, Cypher, and even Viper can all be great lurkers. Their abilities can be used over long distances and can still easily help their team even if they’re on the other side of the map. That’s what separates these three agents from Yoru. They can all offer valuable utility to help their team out, unlike Yoru, who only brings lurking to the table.
Overall, Yoru in pro play just isn’t worth it to most teams. While Yoru can definitely be exciting and entertaining to watch, it just doesn’t translate to winning as much as pro teams would like.
