This is all my own impression of many decisions coming out of Riot, no set timeline here I'm not a private investigator I have to do my own prep for qualifiers with these changes. This is a long one so buckle up and get a coffee.
Before any opinions are said I want to say that nothing I feel that I am pointing out means I agree with how things are done.
I do not play LoL, but I know a lot of people that do, and I know a few that have played it for a long time and followed their scene for a long time. In the conversations I have had with them I have gotten the idea that LoL has a problem. League has tons of agents, but to my understanding ~30 champs of 167 current champs available are actually played in pro play consistently. People don't try things (anymore?). Riot has made it kinda obvious they don't want Valorant to take that route.
There was a change that has been long since forgotten when the game was new that sounds RIDICULOUS today with current/coming metas. We're talking pre kayo release even, tbh im not sure how long ago it was-but the game was kinda boring. People were just running at eachother, there wasnt much util in the game yet, and fights were just kinda boring coinflips sometimes. OG Jett with og knives dash everything, got farmed by cypher trips. 1 insane patch later and Jett dash broke cypher trips. In today's state of the game that is WILD.
"miniature ur smoking something what the hell does this have to do with skye and some master plan?"
Jett was the most exciting agent to both watch and play back then, this was the beginning of the game as an esport. Even today, Jett is the posterchild of Valorant and she really isnt that great anymore, especially not comparably to back then.
If meta did not revolve around insane Jett plays and went to more calculated counterstrike-style defaults, we would not have the same valorant we have today. The game would not have this level of popularity.
Valorant has EXPLODED forward with each OP agent that has been in the game because the gameplay tends to be exciting to watch. Watching seoldam's insane knife clips back when right clicks refilled and had basically no reload/cooldown, something about it felt magical, even if we all accepted it was a little bit silly. That evolved into watching Yay become the most dominant player in the game, every team he played against had multiple calls a game that were just to run away from him. The guy was a BEAST on the agent. Fundamentally great for marketing the game bc what we got to see was simple for casual players to understand, but complex enough for better players/teams to have a skill gap at using it.
"Huh, I guess all that is true, but where are we going with this? We don't have either of those anymore so what do they even matter?"
What I want to ask everyone(not really rhetorical),
"Why don't we ever talk about Astra anymore?"
I would argue Astra had more impact on meta than any other agent in an isolated setting and its really not even close. Astra enabled EVERYTHING and there was nothing you could do about it. Hell, she started off being able to use stars off barrier dropping, you would physically not be able to take space off barrier bc it would be sucked and combo'd immediately. We don't ever talk about the fact she was the best controller the game has ever seen and hopefully ever will.
Chamber was still broken, everything revolved around him-he was the center of the universe-nobody can say otherwise. However, we also had prime duelist kayo, insane flashes, perfect utility to deal with opposing chambers, and soon enough we also had fade which did the same. If Prime Chamber was Michael Jordan, he had the same Bulls lineup that enabled that greatness to be seen.
"miniature im getting bored. I care but get to a point pls holy shit."
The pieces start to make a clearer picture with that last idea; Chamber was great but man was that support cast also extremely consistent across maps. Hell, even fracture had people try to forgo breach to setup/counter chamber better(yes im aware there were comps that worked blah blah, it was extremely hard). This is where that concept about LoL champ diversity comes up. League is a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way ahead of us as far as development, but we almost have as many agents in our game as their pro play actually sees.
Riot. Does. Not. Want. That. For. Valorant.
"Says you noob you're not even a real pro, why would I take your word on anything?"
If chamber was truly the only agent that was "dominating/ruining meta" back then, why has every single agent that supported him been dramatically nerfed(at least to their primary function during that meta, kayo still used but its diff now). Astra's gone, Fade is gone(sadge my best agent), Kayo is no longer a duelist god, hell even viper had her wall-orb combo nerfed.
If that doesn't tell you "Riot doesn't want copy paste comps across maps for long periods," then I don't think you should keep reading. Riot wants EXCITEMENT and ENTERTAINING gameplay.
"Alright I'm starting to see what this is all about, but whats this whole 'bigger picture' aspect?"
The constant factor that has led to this happening over and over, this time with a much more BORING skye meta that enables very slow structured consistent gameplay across maps, is time spent perfecting gameplay.
As a competitor, unsuccessful so far but for shortcomings I have worked my ass off to fix, I get the pain everyone is going through about how much work is just down the drain. There's nothing that can be said or truth that can be spoken that makes that any less painful or damaging. But I don't think Riot wants teams to succeed because they're better at preparing and practicing, they want teams to win because they adapt better than others.
I, PERSONALLY, have criticized their lack of any real grass roots developmental strategy with how dumb ranked is and what it rewards, but I think I missed this one.
If these decisions, now including this Skye assassination, are all part of a bigger picture, HONSETLY, IM OK WITH IT.
I get that that is a scalding HOT take but I feel like if we zoom out, so far this isn't really that horrific.
The part where it gets sketchy and I understand how this can be disrespectful to just throw out ideas about but it has a logic thread to it; this explains why their recent layoffs are specifically esports division people. They've been getting more and more on our side and taking in the criticism even if it doesn't look like it, bc he-who-shall-not-be-named is just completely out-of-touch and is the only public face of the direction/changes being made. Riot carries a lot of pride in their decision making and as I said in my 2birds1stone post about the whole less matches thing, some of that is earned, but that doesn't make it healthy.
It's a bit poetically sadistic but I can see a bit of an image forming: massive meta changes just before the start of a season that has less matches overall means teams WILL struggle to adapt, thus the teams best at it will thrive.
There may not be a hard set meta on every map, or even 2 or 3 comps that you always see. This may be riot firing the starter pistol in the race of "who will reach the promised land of their long term vision of Valorant as an esport." I'm creative, I feel like I see possibilities in comps others don't, I've been lazy with a lot of it cuz I didn't want to fully igl until now, but other comps DO WORK. and NOBODY tries any of it. We've seen token test runs with C9 deadlock on Icebox in this Ludwig tourney, EG last season with yoru jett Pearl (but even then yoru is genuinely nuts on that map to begin with), Gekko here and there, but its on average its a meme.
Discord