Towards the end of January, Valorant received its 8.01 update that brought some significant balancing changes, and most importantly a thorough Skye nerf. The changes to the agent were discussed on social media by both esports professionals and casual fans. With social media alive with discussions, we at Streams Charts thought it was a perfect opportunity to analyse Twitch chat for dynamics in the mentions of certain Valorant agents and correlations to external factors.
The patch notes for update 8.01 explained that these changes were intended to give other agents a chance to shine and to lessen Skye’s dominance in the game. Many players and fans took issue with such a major update, claiming it arrived too close to the beginning of the 2024 VCT season. While this update was one of the most discussed agent topics of the offseason, new updates are not the only conversation starter for Twitch chats.
Throughout this piece, we examine the most popular Valorant agents in Twitch chats and look at their dynamics across 8 months, to determine why and how certain agents enjoyed a boost in Twitch chat discussions. The data for this piece was sourced from the Twitch chats of the 50 most-watched Valorant channels on Twitch for the selected period, which spans from June 2023 to January 2024.
Twitch Chat’s Most Popular Valorant Agents
Jett was by far the fan favourite among Twitch chats, amassing 259.7K mentions across the 8 months. Jett’s stand-out popularity is thanks to a mixture of her high pick-rate in the Valorant Champions Tour, and overall popularity among fans of the game. Similar to Tracer of Overwatch, Jett has been the face of Valorant since its launch, often featuring in the game’s promotional material and cinematics.
The other most popular agents in Twitch chats are Reyna, Raze, Omen, and Killjoy. All of these agents are some of the original available characters for the shooter; Reyna was included with the game’s official release, Killjoy was added just two months after, and the other 3 agents were all present in the game’s beta.
Duelists were by far the most popular type of agent, with the top 3 most popular agents by mentions all representing the Duelist banner. Initiators were the least popular type of agents: on average they received less than half the mentions that duelists received. KAY/O, Gekko, and Fade all ranked within the bottom 5 of agents by Twitch chat popularity, and Breach was the least popular of the 10 original agents of the Valorant beta.
Also, the most popular Valorant agents in Twitch chat are largely female. In the above top 5 ranking, Omen is the only male agent to rank highly. Along with Omen, Yoru was the only other male agent to receive more than 100K mentions across our selected period. On average, female agents received 100.7K mentions, whereas their male counterparts received only 67.6K. Even when Jett is excluded from the data as an outlier in terms of popularity, female agents still recorded 84.9K mentions on average.
In terms of raw mentions in Twitch chats, Jett was the most dominantly popular agent by a wide margin, and other female agents enjoyed considerably higher popularity than their male counterparts on average. Duelists cemented their superstar status as the most popular type of agent, and Initiators were the unsung heroes of Valorant, receiving the fewest Twitch chat mentions on average.
Dynamics of Twitch Chat mentions across 8 months
By examining the dynamics of mentions for Valorant agents in Twitch chat, we identified some key factors which can influence the presence of an agent in your favourite streamer’s chat. One of the obvious factors is their appearance in esports matches.
Choosing Jett and Yoru as examples, the power of esports matches is clear to see in the Twitch chat dynamics. Yoru is a popular agent on Twitch; as mentioned earlier, he is the only other male agent besides Omen to have received 100K+ mentions and he was the 6th most popular agent overall.
Yoru was mentioned over 4.5K times in one single day on July 17, thanks to the VCT 2023: Americas Last Chance Qualifier. Throughout both the VCT 2023 Americas League and the Masters Tokyo events, Yoru was not picked once. Even throughout the entire VCT 2022 season, Yoru was an extremely rare pick and not often seen in the game’s top esports events.
Therefore, fans were shocked when the upper bracket quarterfinals match at the 2023 Americas LCQ between Sentinels and 100 Thieves featured a Yoru mirror match on Bind. The match would define the end of the season for one of the two competing teams, and adding two Yorus into the mix elevated the match’s popularity. According to Esports Charts, the match between 100 Thieves and Sentinels was the most popular match of the entire VCT 2023: Americas Last Chance Qualifier, recording 385.5K Peak Viewers.
Fans and broadcast talent alike couldn't contain themselves seeing a Yoru mirror match
We can observe a secondary spike in popularity for Yoru on August 20, when he featured in Map 3 of the upper bracket final between Paper Rex and Evil Geniuses at the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament. However, both this secondary spike and the Americas Last Chance Qualifier spike are dwarfed by Jett’s popularity.
On the same day that Yoru enjoyed a secondary peak, Jett received 6.7K mentions in Twitch chat thanks to the same Paper Rex vs Evil Geniuses match at the Champions 2023 event. The match was watched by over a million concurrent fans at peak, and the final Map 3, which also featured a Yoru, sported two Jetts. Jett also enjoyed a high number of mentions the following days, as she appeared often in the final matches of the Valorant Champions 2023 event. However, her high mentions on August 29 were not caused by appearances in an esports tournament, but a new update.
On August 29, Valorant released the 7.04 update which heavily nerfed Jett, affecting every single one of her abilities. Jett was mentioned 2.8K times in Twitch chat that day, making it the busiest day for Jett in Twitch chat excluding the final 3 days of the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament. The data from Twitch chat for Yoru and Jett sets out that appearing in esports matches is the most significant method for a Valorant agent to be on the minds of every Twitch chatter, but updates and new changes to the game can also bring waves of popularity to agents.
By expanding our selection of agents to include Omen, Cypher, Skye, and Iso, we can reinforce some of the factors we have already identified, as well as explore some new ones. Immediately obvious is the prevalence of game updates as a factor influencing the mentions of an agent in Twitch Chat.
The Smoke Alert update, 7.08, introduced an audio and visual cue 1.5 seconds before a smoke fades away. The update affected Astra, Brim, and Omen, the last of which experienced a slight surge in Twitch chat mentions on the day. Omen’s peak would come in early January with Episode 8, which heavily featured Omen in the promotional material, including the cinematic trailer. Omen received 1.5K mentions in Twitch chat following the additional exposure, far more than he received during the Smoke Alert update.
In the 7.09 update, Iso was officially released and Cypher received a buff to his Trapwire ability, potentially affecting his viability for competitive play. Iso reached his peak mentions of 3.9K the day after the update on November 1, as many streamers played the agent for the first time on stream. Although the agent enjoyed popularity in Twitch chat coming up to and after his release, his mentions in Twitch chat have since lost steam and he is now a middling agent in terms of popularity.
G2 Gozen's player roxi showed off her Cypher at the Game Changers Championship
Cypher’s buff with the 7.09 update saw him reach his peak mentions for the period: 1.15K mentions in a single day. On November 28, this popularity was echoed when Cypher was mentioned 1.1K times, thanks to his appearances at the 2023 Game Changers Championship. At the Valorant Champions 2023 tournament in August, Cypher was picked 8% of the time by competing teams. 3 months later at the Game Changers Championship, Cypher was featured in over 64% of all matches. Not only was Cypher’s initial buff a source of popularity in Twitch chat, but his appearance in esports matches after the buff brought more popularity with it.
Finally, we can see the recent Skye nerf which was the source of much discussion and debate in the competitive community. The changes to Skye’s flash were perhaps not as controversial as the timing of these changes, immediately before the beginning of the 2024 VCT season, but Skye ultimately received 1.6K mentions in a single day. Not only was this the most popular day for Skye, but across all 24 agents throughout the entire 245 days covered Skye’s 1.6K mentions was only bested 40 times. Excluding Jett, this falls to 17 times. Skye’s recent nerf was the most-discussed moment for Valorant in Twitch chat in 2024, no other agent gathered more than 1650 mentions in a single day throughout 2024 except Skye.
Using Twitch chat as a lens to analyse the popularity of Valorant agents, it’s clear that Jett is a head above the rest in terms of popularity. Not only does she appeal to the casual community and act as the face of Valorant, but her abilities make her a key piece of Valorant’s esports scene. Other agents enjoyed spikes thanks to their appearances in esports matches, promotional material, and patch notes. Skye’s recent nerf was the most controversial moment of 2024 so far for Valorant, but the upcoming esports scene will bring new moments for Valorant agents to shine.