Today, during "the first" (someone had to claim it eventually) VALORANT tournament between NRG and various esports influencers hosted by @REALMizkif, gamers flocked to Twitch.tv to watch some high-level VALORANT. With a prize-pool of $2,000, the games were a tad more serious than the usual beta scrims we have seen from the competitive community so far.

The players are clearly well-practiced - the gameplay was tight. If you're eager to see some more coordinated high-level gameplay of Riot Games' newest tactical shooter, you can check out the past broadcast here. 

The below clip features the coms of "Team Mendo" directly after a match against "Team Aceu" where both Lucas "Mendo" Håkansson and Timmy "iiTzTimmy" An placed as the top two scorers utilizing VALORANT's newest agent, Raze. They had a combined 65 kills between them across the 23 rounds. In the clip, you can hear a sentiment shared by many members of the ever-growing VALORANT competitive community, Raze is a bit too strong.

Jaryd "summit1g" Lazar shares their sentiment, tweeting this out separately from the crew. 

Raze is very overpowered and in need of a balance patch:

Is Raze broken? Perhaps. There are two likely scenarios at play

1. The game is in early Beta and balance issues are inevitable. Being the Agent with the most offensive abilities in the game (each designed to net kills), it stands to reason that she is powerful in the hands of a skilled player.  If that if there ever was an Agent to dominant the earliest competitive meta, it is the one capable of getting the most solo kills.

2. The other scenario is that Raze isn't broken and players are just new. There are tons of nuance to Valorant competitive play and, in many instances, Raze is so effective because of her ability to ignore that nuance and make lots of explosions. Explosions cause chaos and inexperienced players (or even competitive-minded players with limited VALORANT exposure) can easily fall victim to the amount of offensive pressure she creates.

What do you think?

Is Raze too powerful in a CS:GO style shooter? Should Riot tone down the damage she can do with her abilities or is this just a "get good" moment for VALORANT theorycrafters? Let us know what you think in the comments!