Chamber, VALORANT’s second newest agent, has finally made his debut in the VALORANT Champions Tour. The French Sentinel was picked dozens of times on Day 1 of the Europe, Middle East and Africa open qualifiers leading up to Challengers 1, according to VLR.gg. The agent had seen play in third-party tournaments, but this is the first time he’s been played in the VCT.
The EMEA VCT open qualifiers are divided between three regions: Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe and Turkey. As is often the case in open brackets, the skill divide between some of the teams is quite significant. Many, but not all, of the Chamber selections came from teams who would generally qualify as Tier 3 or Tier 4 opposition.
Two of the more established teams who opted to try out the newest sentinel were Team Heretics and KOVA. Heretics, who were knocked out of the qualifiers early in a surprising upset, tested the agent in their first match of the day against Raftel. Christian “lowel” Garcia Antoran used Chamber on Breeze in a one-sided affair. KOVA’s Hampus “Supmah” Svensson also brought the agent out on Breeze in a one-sided map.
Although Chamber was played on a medley of different maps, Breeze looks to be the early favorite for the Sentinel’s home ground.
Fans of competitive VALORANT have speculated since Chamber’s release that the Frenchman may only see occasional play at the highest level of the VCT. Thus far, few professional players have been willing to drop other core pieces of their team compositions like Killjoy, Cypher or even Reyna in order to slot in Chamber. It remains to be seen how his pick rate will change as VCT carries on. He may end up like KAY/O, who steadily grew in popularity until he had a firm niche in time for VALORANT Champions 2021. Or Chamber may go the way of Yoru, forgotten and waiting for changes to his kit.
