Among the many new duelists, Yoru was the 15th agent added to Valorant. Like most agent launches, Yoru was hyped up so high only to fall harder later on. In the early stages of the agent’s release, Yoru was considered a “throw” agent, and players were dodging games that featured Yoru. As acts passed by, Riot made a solid call by reworking the agent’s abilities completely to make them stronger amongst the other agents. How well did that work out? Well, let’s find out.
Yoru was a completely different agent from what he is today in Valorant!
Hailing from the lit streets of Japan, Yoru was supposed to outplay enemies using his over-the-top abilities. Riot’s intention was clear; they wanted to introduce a Duelist with aggressive teleporting abilities. Unfortunately, Yoru had an ability that was rendered completely useless and went by the name “Fake Footsteps.” This ability made fake footstep sounds to confuse the enemies. Players caught onto this ability pretty easily, and Riot had to vault this ability and replace it with the present “Decoy” ability.
His ultimate ability was also buffed along with reducing the vision of his teleport points. Ever since the changes, players have slowly started to accept Yoru as a viable option. His ultimate has way more value now, and his fake footsteps have been changed to a decoy ability. The new decoy ability allows for multiple outplays by confusing opponents. Combine the decoy with fake teleports, and Yoru can show presence all over the map.
Tenz and Forsaken Saved Yoru ?
To be honest, many players could not figure out what the gameplay style of Yoru is. Besides his flashes, which are very good, his other kit needs a lot of pre-planning. PRX was the first team to make sure they abused Yoru’s new ability kit in their professional matches. Forsaken from PRX and TenZ from Sentinels both emphasized Yoru’s impact in the game ever since the agent was reworked. You might not find TenZ playing Yoru frequently in his professional matches, but in ranked matches, he keeps fragging hard with Yoru.
Bind and Split are where Yoru vibes the most in Valorant!
For those who’ve been following the recent VCT Masters Madrid, the best clip of the whole tournament was a Yoru Ace. Yep, it was not a Chamber, it was not Jett, it was the man, the Japanese duelist himself. Forsaken managed this clutch play with Yoru against the Chinese Pro team EDG. Check it out yourself in the video below.
The challenge with Yoru is to come up with an effective plan. Confusing the opponent with fake and real teleports is what the agent is all about. In Bind, Yoru can show heavy presence in Showers while the whole team scales up Showers. While flashing and sending in a decoy is good enough for making noise and forcing the opposition to over-rotate. While attacking, if Yoru does manage to get a few kills while fighting a site, the whole team can teleport to A-site using the B teleport doors. This strategy is often unplayable once the team is in sync.
