Premier

Warning: Long Read

I'm assuming you're at least in one of the ascendant-ish divisions. If you're below, don't worry about strats or vods, just focus getting comfortable playing with your friends and you'll probably win. Premier is kinda a joke unless you're in the invite division or something. I've won premier before (Elite 4) and played in small community cups (even won one), and the difference is night and day. Premier is pretty much a glorified ranked 5 stack. People act like its something special where people are defaulting and pulling out set strats, its not. Here's some basic tips.

#1. Learn to be tradeable whenever you can. This is by far the hardest thing for people to get the hang of, but if your team is good at it you will annihilate 99% of teams out there. G2 is probably the best team in the world at this right now.

#2. Choose a normal, meta or close to meta comp and get comfortable on your agents. For example, its ok to switch out a kayo for something else on ascent if nobody has ever played him, or play clove instead of omen if you're comfortable on her, but you better be playing a Sova. You don't need to go crazy with lineups either - and this is coming from a huge lineup nerd.

#3. Have a basic understanding of how maps are played, and how you want to play them. For example, the golden rule on defense bind : never full rotate until the bomb is planted

#4. Don't overcook with crazy set strats and util combos. You aren't DRX. If you're going to, keep them simple with as little 'moving parts' as possible. Maybe a set trap play or two for eco rounds or bonuses, or a set showers default for offense on bind, simple stuff like that. Don't overcomplicate it.

#5. Most people suck at dealing with a good oper, especially if you set him/her up well. Abuse that, even on offense if you can. Shotguns are also funny

Now that you've absorbed all that, its not hard to find vods. Just search 'valorant premier' on youtube and you'll find thousands. Here's the first one I found. https://www.youtube.com/live/FO-DR4r2I7U?si=0rG7xdqej-HwPWf9 (Notice how they're playing a harbor raze fade yoru bullshit on ascent and get smoked by a meta comp)
I'm sure you could find thousands of twitch vods too.

bruh that shit is for diamonds who wanna feel like they're pros

it has something to do with this, but i'm not sure of the specifics
https://www.vlr.gg/event/2071/challengers-league-2024-north-america-stage-2/premier-play-ins