Ever since VALORANT’s closed beta came out, two weapons were always at the center of some fiery debate on which is the better AR.
While the first few official tournaments revealed professional VALORANT players preferred Phantom over Vandal for its superior fire rate, the latest data shows otherwise as the recent Vandal fire-rate buff might have finally closed the gap.
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Both Phantom and Vandal already have some passionate userbase that refuses to use or master any other gun in the game. The VALORANT community shares strong opinions on which gun is the best to this day. However, the latest data clearly indicates a new trend in the rise of Vandal in competitive lobbies.
Vandal is actually outperforming Phantom
While before the VALORANT patch 1.07, Vandal was severely underutilized. Despite being the better choice for the attacking side, most of the pro players simply preferred Phantom for its superior fire rate. All this gradually started to change after Riot buffed Vandal’s fire rate in VALORANT patch 1.07.
Data clearly indicates a gradual spike of new Vandal users. Right now, across all the maps in the Radiant competitive lobbies, players are more likely to use a Vandal rather than its more easily manageable counterpart.
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Riot’s initial goal was to close the gap between Vandal and Phantom as they were meant to be used interchangeably for the most part. Although after patch 1.07, it is obvious Vandal is currently outperforming. Whether or not Riot will step in to further make any changes is still up for debate. Seems like players will have to wait until December for VALORANT’s next big patch to find out.
