Gekko makes pro Valorant debut in VCT but isn’t quite living up to the hype

Gekko has made his splash debut in the VCT leagues, with many pro Valorant teams incorporating him into their team comps, but it is not quite living up to the hype from his release. 

Gekko made a huge splash in Episode 6 of Valorant when he first released, with many pro and high leveled players alike calling the agent overpowered right away. And when he did debut in the game, he quickly dominated the ranked leaderboards. 

He had the second-highest win rate out of any agent in the game at the time of release, only being beaten out by Killjoy. But this didn’t last, however, as while KJ still sits on top to this day and Gekko has quickly fallen to sixth place. 

This trend appears to reflect his state in pro play as well. The first weeks of VCT EMEA and Americas have wrapped up, along with the second week of Pacific as well, and we have seen plenty of Gekko in action, to varying results. 

What is Gekko’s win rate in pro Valorant?

Across all three professional leagues so far, using VLR’s statistics on the agent, Gekko’s overall win rate stands at 10.6%. which is the lowest of any Initiator in the agent pool. 

In Pacific, we saw Patt of Talon Esports as the first player to pick it up in the second week, ultimately losing the map against a red-hot T1. They would attempt it again on the second map with foxz, but soon lost that map as well. These shortcomings leave Gekko with a 0% win rate in the Pacific region. 

In America, things have gone slightly better. It was mainly Loud adopting the new initiator early on, with saadhak on Gekko duty for the first two maps. Loud played great and showed it had solid potential in the right hands. Unfortunately, EG also picked it up for one map, and was reverse-swept by Cloud9, losing the series. 

In EMEA, we saw the most use of Gekko of all regions, with Navi and Karmine Corp adopting him early. Navi’s debut match against Koi was underwhelming for the powerhouse, with Shao picking up Gekko for both maps and losing 0-2. Their next match showed better promise though, with Ange1 switching onto the Gekko. 

Karmine Corp was a mixed bag. Their first match against BBL saw them use the character for both winning maps. However, in their second series against Team Heretics, it was a total blowout, only winning seven rounds in the entire match.

Is Gekko viable in pro Valorant play?

As of now, the only maps in which Gekko has received playtime in VCT are Icebox, Split, Ascent, Lotus, and Pearl. 

Commentators and analysts like Sideshow and Thinking Mans Valorant are questioning if it even is worth trading out a Sova, Fade, or Killjoy for a Gekko. Which many of the teams are trying early on to mixed results. As other agents have excellent utility in taking and retaining map control, it’s a difficult trade.

But it’s worth keeping in mind these are early numbers for Gekko. As we go through the regular season in all three leagues, we should be seeing more teams figure out where Gekko lands in the meta, and we’ll have more data to see if he is working.