Rounding out the Initiator category is Fade. Fade is the most recent Agent added to VALORANT (as of writing) and almost immediately made an impact on the pro scene. The Turkish nightmare strikes fear into the hearts of her enemies with her incredibly useful kit focused on revealing.

Professional players have had no trouble adapting her into the meta with the Terror Trail to track the opposition, the Prowler to hunt them down, Seize to lock them in place, and her Haunt and Nightfall abilities to reveal them and leave them utterly terrified.

Be sure to check out the best pros to watch for the other Initiators:

• Sova
• Breach
• Skye
• KAY/O

Now, read ahead to see who you should keep your eyes on for the best Fade gameplay in the pro VALORANT scene. These are players with incredible game sense, a knack for perfect utility placement, and have proven that Fade is a championship caliber Agent in the Riot Games first-person shooter.

Note: This article may be subjective and reflect the opinion of the writer. Players are not listed in any specified ranking order.

Best pros to watch who play Fade

nobody

Senxu “nobody” Wang has been on a tear as Fade. He helped lead EDward Gaming to a Champions berth through the East Asia Last Chance Qualifier. In a 3-0 sweep of On Sla2ers, he performed as Fade in two of them and Breach in one, on the way to a top fragging 54/40/22 KDA line. Throughout the entirety of the EA LCQ, he and EDG didn’t drop a single map.

There isn’t much else to say other than keep an eye on him at Champions. The effort put into becoming one of the best Fade players in the world is obvious. From catching the other teams off-guard to setting his teammates up for massive kills, nobody might as well have helped write the book on how to play Fade. It is just downright fun to watch.

trent

Like so many other players, Trent “trent” Cairns switched his focus from Sova to Fade for the most part. Needless to say, it has paid off. He has a 1.14 KD with the Agent (at time of writing) with a huge 92 assists. That is with just over 10 appearances on the Turkish Agent. The NA Last Chance Qualifier saw him take control over many of North America’s finest.

While The Guard did fall to 100 Thieves in the Grand Final, the three prior matches in the LCQ were incredible showings by trent and company. Look no further than The Guard’s insanely close series against Sentinels. He played Fade in the final two maps of the series and is a large part of why and how The Guard gained momentum throughout the tournament. Overcoming a hyped up Sentinels squad propelled them to a solid Upper Bracket run.

qRaxs

FUT Esports, formerly known as Futbolist, lost in the Upper Bracket Semifinals of the VRL 2022 championship tournament. From there, they punished the Lower Bracket and got revenge against Team Vitality in the Grand Final. A lot of their path towards victory can be accredited to Doğukan “qRaxs“ Balaban and his versatility in the server.

He plays a ton of Agents and absolutely comes into his own when playing Fade. The most prominent recent example is in the FUT vs. Case Lower Final of the VRL 2022 Finals. The first map, Bind, saw qRaxs share the top frag spot with two of his teammates. He jumped ahead of them in other areas, however, with a 238 ACS and a massive 86% KAST.

Bob

Cloud9 White has dominated the Game Changers scene for as long as GC has existed. The core roster remained intact for the majority of their dynastic legacy, but once Annie “Annie“ Roberts shifted to a streaming role, Bob “Bob“ Tran came in and nothing changed. C9W remained the best that Game Changers has ever seen.

In the most recent GC Series II Grand Final in North America, Bob played Fade twice in the four map series. Those two maps resulted in 21 assists as the Agent, with 37 assists being the final total in the series. Talk about using utility to set up the team for victory. That’s exactly what Bob did and it shows another side of the Turkish Radiant that isn’t just simply fragging out and doing everything solo.

Shao

Finishing the best pros to watch who play Fade is Andrey “Shao“ Kiprsky. FPX fell to FNATIC and then forced their way through the Lower Bracket of Masters Copenhagen all the way to a Grand Final victory over Paper Rex. During that Grand Final, Shao proved to be the difference maker for FPX when it mattered most.

Watch that match, specifically Fracture and Haven, to see this player put Fade to work. Or go back and watch any of the remaining 32 appearances he has had with the Agent all-time (as of writing). There are a lot of players who toss Fade’s utility around and hope to get lucky. Every time Shao sends out an ability, it is calculated and with reason. That’s why FPX were able to raise the trophy at Masters Copenhagen.

That does it for the Initiators, so stay tuned to Run It Back for the best pros to watch from the Controller and Sentinels classes! And while you’re at it, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, follow us on Twitter, and join our Discord to become part of an ever-growing community.