Reyna
Reyna is the agent in Project A with the most staying power in a fight.
Her Q, Devour, gives back the health she has lost. Her E, Dismiss, turns her untouchable for a breath so she can step out of a firing line. She is built for the scramble. To cast either one she has to get the kill herself, or tag an enemy and have a teammate finish them within three seconds — and Reyna even comes with a skill meant to make that happen.
That is her C, Leer. Allies can stare straight at it and see nothing wrong. An enemy who looks has their vision cut down, a pseudo-flash in all but name. The eye travels through terrain, utility so absurd it borders on cheating, and for a Reyna who otherwise has not a single skill that helps her take space, it does a great deal of the heavy lifting.
Even with all of that going for her, if I am being honest, I do not think Reyna is a good agent.
I will grant the utility on Q and E, and how strong she is once a fight turns messy. All of it, though, only exists after she has already gotten the kill. Lose the aim duel, and she never gets to press either skill.
Then just use Leer? Leer's durability is 100. Three rifle shots break it. A Marshal or an Operator breaks it in one. It is that fragile. It also takes about four-tenths of a second to arm, and at the pro level, destroying a Leer in that window is nothing.
Put simply, she is a sub-entry whose performance is decided entirely by one player's hands. If a team already has a main entry who can actually take a site — a Jett, a Raze — you can run her underneath them. The meta these days would rather have a KAY/O, with suppression, flashes, and a whole spread of utility that helps the team, which is why Reyna has been obsolete in the pro scene for a long time.
Right. That is the pro scene.
Pro games are not ranked. Set aside monsters like Apas and Duke, and the gap between players is not that wide. In ranked, the gap shows immediately. Your own entry is inting while the enemy entry drops twenty, thirty kills. Games like that are everywhere.
The most effective agent when the difference in skill opens up. An agent who can solve the game alone, with no help from the team. An agent who is strong into numbers. Those are the reasons Reyna is loved in ranked.
Geonmo said it in a sour, reluctant voice, like he had a complaint with me.
Of course I knew why.
"It's a kill bet, so you'll let it slide, right?"
"W-well, yeah. Doesn't matter what you do. Sure..."
He hates Reyna. A lot.
Most Reynas in ranked lean on a kind of play people call baiting — using a teammate as the lure. From Reyna's side, where the kill is everything, it is the easiest way to manufacture one. Not that I had any intention of baiting my team. I was going to make the kills myself.
The pistol round opened the game. I bought the 500-credit Ghost, then spent 250 of the remaining 300 on my C, Leer.
Oh, right. I was supposed to show this off.
"Hey, everyone, I bought a skin. Ta-da~!"
I had been streaming for over a month, and the revenue had finally come in. It was not a huge amount, but it was enough to buy the skin viewers had been begging for. Or so I told myself.
As it happened, I had bought Sovereign today — the Ghost's most popular skin, the one people call the classic.
"Eunha. You're a Project A streamer, and you hadn't bought a single skin until now?"
"My dad won't let me spend money on games."
"...Right. A minor. That can happen. Mm."
We were starting on defense, but I meant to push up and take the fight. Die for nothing on a push, or give up a trade, and the defense — the side that needs the numbers more than the attack does — is the one that loses. I was sure I would not be the one eating that loss. Whether they double-swung or peeked out to trade, I was confident I could take one of them, and with Dismiss, Reyna can make whoever comes for the trade look like a fool.
To check whether they were coming through B Main, I asked our Sova for a recon bolt.
"Huh?"
Time passed, and our Sova still had not answered. He was in the voice channel. Maybe he just did not use his mic.
At least he was not ignoring voice entirely.
"What do you mean, bewitched? Keep that up and I really will get mad."
Lately, more and more of chat had taken to calling me a fox. I enchant people, or something like that. I had only been talking like a normal person. Banning them felt wrong — every viewer was precious — and we were in the middle of a collab, so I could not threaten to kill the stream the way I usually did. I decided to let it go.
"Eunha's voice does kind of bewitch people, doesn't it? That's a real thing. I'll give you that."
And now this hyung too?
Less than ten seconds remained before the round. I put my eyes back on the game.
Sova did as I asked and sent a recon into B Main the instant the round began, and it found the enemy Reyna.
I had already been walking up B Main from the start, so the Reyna whose position had just been given away and I had nothing between us but a single wall. Caught on the recon, she shot the bolt and fell back, the way anyone would. I did not miss the instant she turned.
From her side, it had to feel unfair. She would have thought she had backed off quickly enough. If I had not pushed the moment the round started, she would have had time to spare and then some — but I was already up the lane before Sova's recon had even left the bow.
Her death left a Soul Orb. I cast Devour on it.
Overheal carried the health that should have stopped at 100 all the way to 150. A Reyna with a kill on the pistol round reigns as a queen nobody can stop.
I kept an eye out for a cover swing while the Devour went off, but nobody came, so I took more ground. Sova had already rotated mid to back me up the moment I killed her. In a spot like that, sitting back on defense is worse than using the fact that I am Reyna and pushing the space out aggressively.
I extended control all the way to B Link, and locked eyes with a Ground creeping up out of high mid.
Pew, pew, pew. Pak. Pew, pew.
We had both landed headshots. I was the one still standing, overhealed off the Reyna I had just devoured.
"No sound on A Main. They might be rotating through spawn toward B. Careful, Eunha."
"Okay, got it."
No footsteps from their spawn, either. I could not pin them down. They would know, from Ground's death, that I had eaten space up through B Main — maybe even into mid — so they might be walking even back in spawn, the safest ground on the map.
Sova, who had gone to cover A, checked A Main safely with his drone and brought back the info: they were coming through spawn toward B. Our Chamber was watching mid, so the only lane left to them was the spawn side. Raze was already pushing out of A Main and taking space, and Omen and Sova were covering B site, so even if I died, I was going to waste their time.
I had no health left. Holding an off-angle, or a corner on site, would have been the smart play. But this was a kill bet.
I ran the numbers off Sova's A Main clear and the speed of a walk — not a run — through spawn, and waited until I judged they were close.
I threw the Leer toward their spawn and peeked. However easy a Leer is to break, a hundred points of durability is not health you casually delete on a pistol round.
Pew, pew! Bang, bang, bang! Pew!
Blinded, dumping bullets into the eye in a panic, their Chamber was an easy one to send on his way.
"Ah, damn."
Just because someone eats a Leer, or a flash, does not mean they cannot shoot you. If the only place I can come from is B Main, a pre-aim into that gap is already a real threat. Of course, it had only been possible because Ground's headshot had left me with nothing.
One kill on a sliver of health, and an exact call on top of it. Figure in Chamber and Raze collapsing the space from mid and from the enemy spawn, and I had already done everything I needed to.
They tried to brute-force B site anyway. Jett and Omen, just the two of them, never had the attack for it.
ENEMY · Omen 💀 TEAM · Sova
TEAM · Raze 💀 ENEMY · Omen
A pistol round, opened with a win that felt good. One person on the team was not smiling.
"Tsk... I think I just got kinda destroyed."
It was a kill bet, and I already had three.
"Geonmo, you're ready to call me noona, right?"
From here on, Reyna's snowball starts.