Valorant’s Patch 10.00 is Changing the Game

It’s been just two days since Riot Games launched Valorant's first patch of the year, Patch 10.00, and introduced significant updates that set the stage for the game's 2025 season. Players have been very excited to dive back in now that December holidays have passed. This patch brings a new agent, Tejo, along with gameplay enhancements, map rotations, and cosmetic additions, so there’s plenty to be excited about. 

Tejo

Tejo, according to the lore, hails from Colombia and joins Valorant as an experienced Columbian intelligence operative. He is a military veteran who now uses his skills as a consultant. His skill set emphasizes explosives and intelligence gathering, offering players fresh strategies to disrupt opponents and support their teams. Tejo's codename is likely a reference to the Colombian game of the same name. It involves throwing heavy metal discs at explosives on a board filled with gunpowder. Tejo’s “sticky grenade ability” is a callback to the game as players similarly toss a grenade at a target area for the ability. Tejo sports a muted yellow jacket, loose undershirt, jeans, and a slick pair of orange-lense sunglasses. His black hair is crowned by a halo of grey at his hairline which effectively adds a few years on him and contrasts the mostly youthful batch of other agents. Tejo is an Initiator who Dev’s say “Thinks about the map a little differently.”
 

  “We wanted to try adding a couple of abilities with outputs like flushing that was really exciting for creating these windows of power.” Ryan “Rycou” Cousart, Game Designer for Tejo.

Abilities 

Special Delivery: Equips a sticky grenade that adheres to surfaces and detonates, concussing enemies within the blast radius. Players can choose between a direct launch or a single-bounce trajectory.

Stealth Drone: Deploys a controllable drone capable of emitting a pulse that suppresses and reveals adversaries upon activation.

Guided Salvo: Activates an augmented reality targeting system, allowing the selection of up to two locations for missile deployment. These missiles autonomously navigate to the designated spots and explode on arrival.

Armageddon (Ultimate): Provides a tactical strike interface where players can define a path for a sequence of explosions, unleashing a devastating wave along the chosen trajectory.

Gameplay Enhancements 
 

• Episodes are out and Seasons are in. Seasons will last a whole year and will be separated into 6 Acts.
• Ranks will be resetting at the beginning of Season 2025, and will also reset again at an upcoming midseason moment.
• Patch 10.00 addresses the consistency of explosive abilities for agents like Raze, Sova, and Gekko. Adjustments ensure these abilities deliver damage more reliably, rectifying previous issues where, for instance, Raze’s Showstopper occasionally failed to inflict damage upon clipping level geometry. 
• Brimstone's Stim Beacon has been refined for quicker deployment, enhancing its utility in fast-paced scenarios. Equip time after casting adjusted from Normal >>> Fast.
• A “show map pings in world” cheat has been added to Custom game modes to support labbing lineups and practice. When enabled, this cheat reverts the map pinging behavior to pre-patch 9.11 behavior.

Map Rotation Updates: The patch introduces a new map rotation strategy, with maps cycling every Act. In this update, Fracture and Lotus return to the Competitive and Deathmatch queues, while Ascent and Sunset have been temporarily removed from these modes. 

FLEX System: A new cosmetic category, FLEX, has been added, allowing players to equip items in their empty hands for display purposes. These items do not affect gameplay or hitboxes. Players can assign FLEX items through the Expressions Wheel, previously known as the Spray Wheel. To celebrate this addition, all players receive a default FLEX item named STAT-COM. 

Automatic Remake Voting: To improve match integrity, an automatic remake voting system has been implemented. If a player is inactive during the first round, a remake vote initiates automatically, requiring a majority of the remaining players to pass. This change streamlines the process, ensuring fair play when teammates disconnect early in the game. 
 

Esports Hub Revival: With the commencement of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2025 season, the Esports Hub has been reinstated. Players can access an overview of the VCT journey, familiarize themselves with new teams, and explore brackets for the International League Kickoff starting on January 11. 

Premier Updates: Stage V25A1 of the Premier competitive mode is set to begin on January 15. Teams that did not secure a top 16 position in the previous stage will be placed in lower divisions. Team owners have the option to change their team's division before matches commence, providing flexibility in competition placement. 
 

Bug Fixes and Known Issues:

• Fixing issues where certain abilities displayed incorrect team colors for observers.
• Resolving problems with specific agent abilities, such as Skye's Guiding Light and Phoenix's Blaze.
• However, a known issue persists where, in custom games with cheats enabled, changing agents after using the Restart Game cheat may result in a blank Expressions Wheel. Riot Games is working on a fix for this in upcoming patches. 
   

Reception to Tejo and the update has been overall good, but with some arguing that he is overpowered. Once Tejo finds your location, there's not enough that can be done to save yourself if he's working with an Agent that has flash. It does take some coordination, but players have reported that a team-up of that sort essentially leads to free kills. This, in conjunction with a nearly unavoidable ult, has made a few players pretty frustrated when facing off with the explosive agent. However, I don't think this will go on for too long, as a little balancing is always quick to follow once a new agent has been introduced. I'm excited to see how players learn to play with and against Tejo in the coming weeks.

Do you think Tejo is overpowered? Let me know!