Iso has only been a member of the official VALORANT agent roster for a couple of days, but some of the most knowledgeable analysts of the game’s pro scene are already warming up to his ability kit and playstyle.
On the Nov. 1 episode of Plat Chat, several of the casters and analysts who work on the VCT spoke extensively on Patch 7.09, starting off with their initial thoughts on Iso. While Iso isn’t expected to be a meta staple such as duelists Jett or Raze, the consensus among the broadcast talent is that there’s more value to his kit than first believed.
“He’s better than I thought at the beginning,” Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson said. “The fact that you have two Vulnerables you can shoot out whenever you like is actually pretty powerful, and the ultimate is genuinely powerful on the attack site. It wins you rounds; it’s like KAY/O knifing the sentinel player except it’s almost guaranteed if you have any info on where they are because it’s got such a big radius.”
Brennon “Bren” Hook, who’s played the most Iso in ranked among the group, said he found the most value from hunting down enemy sentinels with his ultimate, especially since Cypher got buffed in this patch. “I’ve just been ult-ing [Cypher], putting him in the Gulag, and telling my team to go in while all his traps are disabled,” Bren said.
The group mostly agreed that both Iso’s Contingency wall and Double Tap orb/shield can be very situational. Stingers and Judges can become more valuable if the team uses them to follow Contingency into the site. Bren and Sideshow also said one of the biggest benefits of Double Tap is its psychological effect as it scares enemy players and gives the shielded Iso more confidence when they swing.
Bren did note, however, that the Double Tap shield itself is hard to value, saying that sometimes it soaks “two points of damage from the edge of a Raze grenade, which is useless” but other times it can absorb the full damage of an Op shot.
Overall, though, the group seemed to agree with the sentiment shared in the Dot Esports review of Iso’s ability kit: He could replace a situational agent like Reyna or Yoru in pro play but will be wildly popular within ranked.
