Valorant star yay won’t fall off after Chamber nerf, says FNS

NRG in-game leader Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta has said that he expects Cloud9’s Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker to still be one of the best Valorant players in the world despite the recent nerf to Chamber.

Chamber was once again heavily nerfed in Valorant’s 5.12 update as Riot Games attempted to make the agent less of a must-pick in casual and professional matches.

In a December 1 blog post, agent designer Kevin Meier said that Chamber’s mechanics “were shaping play space in an unhealthy way, infringing on other agent identities, and breaking Valorant’s core tactical cycle.”

The 5.12 update brought significant changes to Chamber’s abilities, to the point where he is now a much less viable pick, according to professional players and coaches. Before, he was “like a cheat code”, according to Team Liquid head coach Emil ‘eMIL’ Sandgren, but now he is more of a situational pick for smaller maps, Team Heretics’ Óscar ‘mixwell’ Colocho said.

One of the hottest topics in the Valorant scene since the nerfs were announced is how they will impact yay, who is widely regarded as the best player in the world.

Chamber has been yay’s most-played agent of the last 12 months with a pick rate of 85.6%, according to The Spike. On Twitter, the Cloud9 star reacted to the news of Chamber’s nerf with sadness. “They straight murdered Chamber,” he wrote.

FNS says yay won’t fall off

Questioned about whether yay will struggle after Chamber’s nerf, FNS said that the Valorant star has good enough mechanics to master another agent and still be an impactful player.

“I’ll end this debate once and for all: yay’s mechanics are too good for him to fall off as a player,” FNS told viewers on his stream. “The abilities in this game are not difficult to master. They just aren’t. He will be able to master another character. Maybe he won’t be as insanely carry-like because Chamber was a hard-carry agent and he was broken, but he will still be good, probably one of the best at whatever role he does choose to play.

“Chamber itself was already a broken character. A less broken character doesn’t mean he becomes a bad player all of a sudden. He will still be good, just not Chamber-good, because Chamber was broken to begin with.”

As a former teammate of yay’s, FNS is better equipped than most to talk about ‘El Diablo’. The pair played together for a year before going their separate ways after Riot Games announced the partner teams for the VCT Americas league.

Despite the competitive success of their team, OpTic were snubbed by Riot Games, forcing the players to find new homes. FNS, Victor ‘Victor’ Wong, and Austin ‘crashies’ Roberts joined NRG, while yay signed with Cloud9. Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen is taking a break from competitive Valorant.