Are you having trouble ranking up by filling in for your team? Sometimes in Competitive, it is best to play with who you are confident in, rather than trying to get a balanced team composition. Put the worrying aside by having Reyna as one of your main agents.
Reyna is a great pub match agent who can take over lobbies with the use of her Radiant abilities. Although she can be a powerful ally, her abilities rely on a player’s frag potential to really have a positive impact for her team. With this in mind, it is important to practice your fundamentals before selecting Reyna as your go-to Ranked agent. The better your fundamentals are compared to the rest of the lobby, the higher the impact your Reyna gameplay will have in the match. Practicing is annoying, but Reyna is a pure Duelist, so that gunplay practice will pay off on Reyna more than any other agent.
Now that you’ve warmed up and practiced the skills that you need to work on, it is time to understand Reyna’s basics and the nuances that come with them.
Reyna’s Leer is not a flash ability. It restricts an enemy’s vision, so that they can only see near them, rather than temporarily removing their vision altogether. Reyna’s Leer can be thrown through solid objects, so it is important to use them behind cover and make your grand entrance through the choke while they are still active.
Throwing your Leers high or low to the ground will force your opponents to ruin their crosshair placement so that they can destroy that piece of utility. If you throw a Leer and it is not shot at, you are able to advance your position and do it again to get even deeper into the enemy’s defenses. If they shoot at the Leer, it presents an opportunity for either you or your teammate to take advantage of the opponent who is either looking towards the ground or up at the heavens (depending on where you threw the Leer) for an easy kill. Mastering your Leer placements and timings is the first step to securing an easy pick for your team.
Since Reyna is a pure Duelist (her abilities rely on her successfulness to duel), it is best that she commits to fights without over-committing and fighting dumb duels. Commit to a fight, get a pick and Dismiss right away to fall back to cover. This is the best option for a Reyna player and should be your first option when presented with confrontation. There are times that the sound of multitudinous footsteps overwhelms you, which causes you to panic. Do you commit to the fight then, try to get a pick and Dismiss? Or do you cower and hide while you warn your teammates of the enemy’s impending entry onto site? When solo holding, it is always best to play it safe even though you excel at dueling.
When faced with multiple targets, you should always hard commit to one of them since you have the luxury of Dismissing and dealing with the other enemy shortly after. Other agents cannot do this, which is why Reyna is more forgiving when taking on reckless fights. This is also why players should buff their fundamental skills, so that you are not punished as often for making reckless decisions.
With that being said, 1v1 fights are your bread and butter. Utilizing off-angles to get that one pick and Dismiss should be your gameplan throughout the match. This will allow you to stall the Attackers on Defense and pick easier fights while attacking. Using Dismiss rather than Devour will pose a bigger threat towards the opposition since Dismiss can be utilized to reposition or be a distraction.
The last thing a Reyna player should remember is not to hold onto their Ultimate. Reyna does a lot of killing. Her ultimate helps her do even more killing. There is no reason to wait for “the perfect moment” since her ultimate is “go kill”. Other agents are forgiven more for holding onto the perfect moment, such as Sova and Killjoy, but Reyna should be utilizing her Ultimate immediately every time. Obviously, there are times to avoid using it. An example of this would be in a 1 v 5 clutch on an eco round or solo holding onto a site on Defense. But let Empress rip whenever possible.
Reyna’s biggest asset in the game is in the pistol round. Her Devour ability allows her to have more health than anybody in the lobby. There are multiple ways you can set up a pistol round with Reyna when solo queuing or if you’re in a match with limited communication.
Buying a single Leer and having the free orb allows you to play off of a teammate. The Leer will initiate for an ally while the orb allows you to use Devour and buff your shields up to at least 25 more health than the opposition.
Purchasing an orb, so that you can start with two, gives Reyna players the freedom of solo play. They are able to start aggressively by getting a pick and using Dismiss while still having an orb left over to use Devour and gain full shields. They do not necessarily have to rely on other teammates to get the quick pick and Dismiss out of the fight.
There should not be a scenario where your credits go to a Sheriff or light shields without buying abilities. A purchase of a Leer allows for the option of teamplay, while a double orb purchase allows for a more dynamic solo play. Using Devour is key to a successful pistol round.
Reyna is a great solo queue agent because of her ability to be self-reliant. Helping herself helps her teammates. Being a Reyna player who can actually frag just boosts your teammates around you since they do not have to rely on getting their picks. They can focus on getting the Spike down or defending a site, while you take on the pressure. Playing off contact, using your Leers to initiate, and being a constant threat to the opposition is a great way to help others by helping yourself. Getting a single kill (hopefully the First Blood) and then immediately Dismissing should be the goal for every round. Dismiss allows you to reposition to safety or as a distraction for a teammate to swing and get the frag. Dismissing and using yourself as a distraction is the best way to get your team involved in your play and it can even be possible without communication.
Remember, Reyna is only as good as your ability to frag, so make sure you have a basic grasp of the fundamentals. Being able to be consistent in your gunplay allows you to pop off during the game. Commit to fights more than not, but make sure you try to isolate your foes so that they are 1v1s instead of 1v5s. Reyna is a self-reliant Duelist, so make sure you do your job by being one of the entries onto the site and putting your life on the line for your teammates. Relieve pressure, frag out, and rank up quickly using Reyna.
