VALORANT has been around for over a year, and there have been numerous changes to the meta since its early days. When the game first released, teams like G2 Esports, Faze Clan, and TSM dominated the scene with their aggressive playstyles. Their strategies relied more on mechanical skills such as aim over ability usage.

Now with VALORANT’s everchanging meta we don’t see this reactive, free flowing gameplay anymore and instead we’re starting to see slower paced gameplay that focuses on stalling the spike defuse from the defenders called the post-plant meta.

The Strategy

A great example of this was during VALORANT Masters Reykjavik in the match between Team Liquid and Version1. To everyone’s surprise, Version1 was able to cause one of the biggest upsets when they dominated 13-4 on Haven and beat Team Liquid 2-1. On the Haven, Version1 had a lineup consisting of Killjoy, Sova, Astra, Viper, and Jett. During their first half, Version1 was on attack and they were able to comfortably finish the half with a score of 10-2.

Their team was able to achieve this by utilizing the seemingly eternal stall potential of the previously mentioned agents, Killjoy, Sova, Astra and Viper. Their strategy was that once Version1 were able to successfully plant the spike, they would just play off the diffusal time by using a combination of Astra’s Gravity Well, Killjoy’s Nanoswarm, Viper’s Snakebites,and Sova’s Shock Darts. The idea was that if the enemy team were unable to take out the agents with post plant abilities, it would make it impossible for theenemies to defuse the spike due to all the abilities.

This sort of strategy has several benefits, first it takes away the reliance on gunplay since most of the heavy lifting is done by utilizing the abilities to stall the defuse. Second, it is much safer since utilities can be thrown from behind cover. Third, there is almost no way to counter this, because unlike in games such as CS:GO, there are no abilities that can remove molotovs.

All these factors make it a nightmare for the defenders to play again, since there is almost no way for them to play against this. The only way to possibly counter this would be to never let the attackers plant in the first place which means the defenders will be forced to push aggressively to stop the site takes which is really inconsistent especially on maps like icebox that are harder to push as defenders.

The Agents

Although this tactic isn’t new, the recent release of Astra has had a great impact on the smokes role in lots of teams. Astra has since then replaced Omen and Brimstone in most maps since she provides much more than the aforementioned agents and works best in a coordinated team environment. She also helps with the strategy since she has utility such as her Gravity Well and Nova Pulse which can both deny the defuse and also make the defusers vulnerable. Her ultimate also helps during the both for planting the spike and also during post plant since it also provides the teams with cover from the defenders trying to defuse the bomb. Since Astra has her Astral Form, which allows her to place smokes anywhere on the map, it makes it easy for her to fake a push on another site while the rest of the team takes the site.

Another big part of the post-plant meta is Viper, as her Snakebites provide one of the most powerful post plant abilities. Her buffs which give an immediate decay of 30 damage when walking through her Toxic Screen and Poison Cloud are extremely useful when paired with the Snakebite. Since, the Snakebite also has the ability to make the person hit with it vulnerable, it makes you receive double damage and can deal up to 91 damage in a second inside the Poison Cloud. This combo is deadly in a post plant situation as an experienced player who knows lineups can easily win the round by delaying the spike defusal or sometimes even killing the defenders. Not only that, a lot of these lineups can be done behind cover, or even across the map and there is no direct way to counter this.

Killjoy also is often picked due to her Nanoswarm grenades and her ultimate. Like Viper’s Snakebites, Killjoy’s Nanoswarm grenades can be thrown with a lineup, or left near the spike and activated when someone tries to defuse. Killjoy’s Alarmbot may also be used to guard flanks which is also an essential part in order to execute the post-plants. Without the enemies could easily flank the team while they are busy setting up the post plant. Her ultimate, Lockdown, is also able to delay pushes onto the bombsite and disable the defuser.

Lastly, we have Sova, he has his Shock Darts and ultimate, Hunter’s Fury can both be used like the previous abilities to stop the defuse. So in theory, if a team were to run this similar team composition, by just using Killjoy and Viper’s abilities, a team can delay a diffuse for a total of 24 seconds, 8 seconds from two of Killjoy’s Nanoswarm and 16 from both of Vipers Snakebites. To add to that, they could also Shock Dart the spike and use Astra’s abilities to further waste more time thus making it impossible to defuse the spike.

If the team plans on playing the post-plant, this team composition is pretty optimal but agents such as Sova may be swapped for another initiator such as Skye to help rushing into the site easier. During the post plant teams usually stay back and out of the site for example on Haven A site when the bomb is planted in the default spot, teams usually do the post plant lineups from A main or sometimes in cubby. At the same time, they often leave one duelist on the site to stall the enemy team from getting to the bomb as an extra measure to delay the defuse. Another agent needs to guard the flank, so agents like Killjoy will benefit from placing an Alarmbot or a Turret to guard the flank.

Conclusion

All in all, the post-plant meta seems to be an extremely useful strategy that teams who lack in firepower when it comes to gunfights can rely on. Although some people don’t enjoy it, it's extremely effective but it comes at the cost of being extremely annoying to be against a team like that and also uninteresting to viewers since you barely get any gunfights when the team plays for the post-plant meta.