Gaming
Esports
The best Valorant players of all time
Looking for inspiration or just want to watch in awe? Our pick of the best players VALORANT around can help you with that.
01
aspas
Some consider him the best player in the world. Or, at the very least, the game's best duelist.
Erick 'aspas' Santos favours Reyna and Sova, aggressively sniping away at all comers. He’s mechanical. He’s cool, calm and collected. And he can turn the tide of a game all on his own. All of which makes him one of the finest players in VALORANT's history.
He isn’t a one-person army, though – he makes space for his team and has an impressive 1.5 K/D ratio. This dedication helped LOUD to nearly go undefeated in the 2023 VCT Americas League, and in the 2023 VCT Americas League, he helped pull a 30 bomb against Fnatic and 100 Thieves.
02
TenZ
Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo, is a former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) player with talent to spare. He's known for never, ever missing and has fantastic gun control.
Catch him playing as Jett, Reyna or even Phoenix. Either way, he knows how to put on a show for his fans, with sky-high kill counts brought about thanks to some of the fastest reflexes in the game. He’s an aggressive player, too, and one that captivates audiences as much as his style intimidates his rivals.
03
florescent
The Canadian player might be young, but Ava 'florescent' Eugene shot to fame when she joined Shopify Rebellion. She led the team to victory at the last World Championship and set a few new records in the process.
Did we mention that she set a new standard for the number of frags kills in the Game Changers series tournaments 2023 at 112? She also set a personal kill record in the same tournament – a brutal 35 in one match, earning her the MVP title for the entire championship.
04
Tiffae
Hsu at the Red Bull Campus Clutch World Final in 2022
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
Team Liquid’s Tiffanie 'Tiffae' Hsu is one of VALORANT’s most established and well-known streamers in her own right.
She’s well known for her daily streams showing VALORANT players everything they need to know, whatever their skill set. She’s also a regular at contests like Red Bull Campus Clutch.
In a sport that can skew heavily male, she knows what it takes to make it to the top and has even shared her tips for success with us. The key takeaway? “Use your passion and be yourself.”
05
Boaster
Boaster is ready to drop some knowledge once again at Red Bull Home Ground
© Lee Aiksoon / Riot Games
Jake 'Boaster' Howlett knows a thing or two about tactical genius, which has helped his team, Fnatic, claim many victories.
Like TenZ, Boaster is a former CSGO player and can often be seen controlling the battlefield and directing the flow of play like an omnipresent VALORANT eye in the sky.
But even the best planners need to adapt on the fly, and Boaster excels at this too, switching things up at a moment’s notice if it means helping his team secure victory. He never loses his cool, either. In fact, he’s renowned as one of the nicest players in the game, keeping up morale on the battlefield and keeping audiences entertained at the same time.
06
tarik
A former world champion, Tarik' tarik' Çelik has become one of the world's favourite VALORANT streamers through a mixture of pure skill and undeniable charisma. He doesn't even mind if you call him 'The Content King' – one of his main nicknames.
Tarik 'tarik' Çelik plugs in
© Marv Watson/Red Bull Content Pool
Like a few others on this list, Tarik honed his skills on CSGO. He was well known for his entertaining streams and outsized talent back then, too. After making the switch to VALORANT, his record-breaking watch parties became legendary.
07
meL
Melanie 'meL' Capone is arguably the most famous female VALORANT player, and with good reason. Although she’s just in her early twenties, meL takes a gangster approach to the game.
As part of Cloud9 White, she helped dominate the American scene before leaving to fight under the Shopify Rebellion banner, resulting in a World Championship win. On a personal level, she’s also set a record by having won nine tournaments in the VCT series.
meL gaming at Red Bull Instalock
© Mark Roe/Red Bull Content Pool
She isn’t afraid of media attention or of facing down male teams, and Forbes magazine even featured her as one of the 30 most important people under 30 in esports.
08
yay
The name tells you everything you need to know. Jaccob 'yay' Whiteaker is best known for playing Reyna and Jett, with whom he's constantly posting massive numbers by pushing the boundaries of what can be done with these Agents, be that capturing an entire sit with Jett or focusing on clutch play with Reyna.
Confident and aggressive, he’s an opponent’s nightmare. An inspiration to his teammates and audience, the unflappable yay is a staple of the VALORANT community.
