The debate on whether to use the Vandal or the Phantom in Valorant is effectively over for Cloud9 ace Tyson ‘TenZ’ Ngo after he saw that the latter can easily kill while moving.
Unlike counter-strafing, which lets players pull off quick stop-and-move kills, TenZ was made aware of the Phantom’s incredible accuracy while moving at a “full running sprint.”
“(I was playing against a pro team) and I swear that I got running-Phantom’d so many times that I actually tried doing it myself,” he explained. “And it actually works really well. But it’s at a certain distance where it’s actually viable.”
There has been a ton of talk among the Valorant community of instances where running headshots were happening at a surprising rate. And TenZ was equally shocked to see that it was easily reproducible in the game.
The Cloud9 pro thought he was accustomed to CS:GO’s shooting mechanics that makes hitting a player unrealistic if you’re moving, in most cases. That isn’t the situation with Valorant, however, since the Phantom gets good shots off at 5-10m away, according to TenZ.
“I like the Phantom way better than the Vandal now, I’ve joined the dark side,” he said. “This gun is just, honestly, way better. One thing that you can do with the Phantom that you can’t do with the Vandal (is get a kill while) full running sprint.”
The important distinction to make is that the Phantom gets really inaccurate while moving, like most of Valorant’s arsenal; however, at a certain distance, the spray generally remains in the local vicinity of where you want to shoot, which makes running while spraying a lot more forgivable.
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“I’m actually going to (use this) until Riot pulls their s**t together and make it so you shouldn’t be able to running spray consistently. I feel like you should be able to running spray every once in a while,” TenZ added, astonished.
The C9 star has his pros & cons for the Vandal and Phantom, but this mechanic seems to have pushed the scale over in favor of the silenced-rifle.
It’s unclear if the Valorant devs made this an intentional and distinct feature to the Phantom. But until there’s a significant change, TenZ has his preferred pick between the two.
