A First Look at Yoru! How to Play Valorant’s Latest Agent

Yoru valorant agent
Yoru joins the agent roster, but where does he fit into Valorant? (Credit: Riot Games)

With the recent release of Valorant Patch 2.0, we now have access to Yoru, the Japanese Duelist. Yoru specializes in stealth and distraction to gain a competitive edge on the battlefield. But how should he be played? We attempt to give you an early answer, because that’s how we do on EarlyGame.

Yoru’s Abilities

  • Ability #1 Fakeout: Costs 100 Creds and you send out an echo that sounds like footsteps when used. When you fire to activate it, you send the echo forward. Press Alt-Fire to place an echo in a place, then choose when to activate the echo.

  • Ability #2 ⁠Blindside: Costs 200 Creds and you activate it to make an unstable dimensional fragment. Fire to toss the fragment and it will activate on contact with an object, blinding players that see it.

  • Ability #3 Gatecrash: Free at the start and 2 kills to recharge. Activate it to make a rift tether. Fire to send the tether forward. Alt-Fire to place a tether in a place. Activate it to teleport to the tether’s location.

  • Ultimate Ability Dimensional Drift: Needs 7 points to use and then Yoru puts on a mask that can see between dimensions. Press Fire to drift into another dimension where you cannot be shot at or seen by enemies (it simply turns you invisible but you cannot be hit).

Now that we had a look at Yoru’s abilities let’s consider how you can use them in a given match of Valorant.

Possible Uses for Fakeout

Fakeout can be used to trick your opponents into thinking someone is approaching while you quickly or quietly move to a better angle of attack. Think of Icebox that has many angles, corners, and corridors to watch. Now you can approach from two directions at the same time! Combine Fakeout with crouching to mislead enemies into peeking too soon while you quietly approach from a further away angle than they expected. The use of this ability really seems endless.

Blindside: A Easy-to-Use Flash

Flashes have been in Valorant from day one so nothing really new to say. Just use them to push corners and look for places you can safely toss your Blindside flash. Take into account that it explodes on contact.

Gatecrash is a Longer Distance Teleport

Teleports and similar abilities are also not new to Valorant, just think of Jett, Omen or Raze – agents that can reach higher lines of fire and hide in unsuspecting places.Yoru’s Gatecrashcan be used to a similar effect. However, it seems you can teleport a longer distance, making swapping to another side of the map easier. Use Gatecrash to get on top of an object or use it to quickly teleport to a safer place if you are being pushed aggressively. Perhaps you can even use it to push a corner since it can be fired! At the very least, it will distract the defender as they try to destroy the fragment before you teleport.

Dimensional Drift - The Ultimate Pusher

The play with Yoru’s Dimensional Drift is to use it to push a corner where you know an enemy is hiding and shoot them from behind. We could also see you first tethering somewhere safely with Gatecrash, then using Dimensional Drift to get a kill and then teleporting back to safety with Gatecrash. Finally, we suggest using it to sneak behind enemy lines in order to set up a pincer attack with your team as they push into a bombsite.

Yoru is probably the duelist that brings the most team fight abilities to the table and is definitely suited for lurking around the map, looking for holes in the enemies' lines of sight. Yoru is the fifth duelist in Valorant, but his place in the meta is still very unknown. His kit is very technical as it plays with sound and angles more than sheer power.

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Paul Hayes

I did my BA in English Lit. and Language Studies at Western University in Canada and I use to play MTG competitively, but sadly to no success so I write instead! If a game doesn't challenge me, it's not the...