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OpTic Gaming star Jaccob “yay” Whitaker has been named as the 2022 Valorant Champions kills leader. The team’s impressive run this year can mostly be attributed to the efforts of the Chamber/Jett player, and he ended the campaign on a high note.
Yay was OpTic’s best player during the entire tournament and produced MVP-like numbers. The American finished the event at the No. 1 spot with 0.93 kills per round and 1.5 overall K/D. Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev from Fnatic recorded the second highest in both categories with 0.92 kills and 1.39 K/D per round. Yay’s overall K/D is in a league of its own, as the other top five players were unable to get a rating that went past 1.4.
Besides his amazing overall kill numbers, yay seemed unstoppable during Valorant Champions 2022, being one of the most aggressive opening-kill players in the tournament. The OpTic player finished with 96, the most total first bloods. Yay also produced the second-highest success rate in the opening duel, which was 70 percent.
Yongkang “ZmjjKK” Zheng from EDward Gaming holds the record for the highest success rate by a close margin. The Chinese player finished with 71 percent, just a percentage higher than yay’s.
At the end of the tournament, yay produced the rounds with the most impact, having made at least two kills in every 117 rounds. The second-highest number was 87 by DRX’s Byung-chul “BuZz” Yu, while OpTic’s Victor “Victor” Wong came third with 84 rounds.
Yay notably attained 73 percent in terms of kill-assist-survive-trade (KAST) at the end of the tournament. The number is remarkable for someone like yay, who is a Chamber/Jett player with few assists due to the play style and abilities of the agents. The player also placed second in overall ACS, with Leviatan’s Francisco “kiNgg” Aravena placing first and attaining third place in average damage per round. Derke and kiNgg finished in first and second place, respectively.
Despite their amazing stats this year and the efforts of yay, OpTic were unable to take home the Valorant Champions 2022 trophy after losing to LOUD in the grand finals. LOUD, on the other hand, had three truly impressive players in their lineup who reached the top 12 for K/D in the tournament. Felipe “Less” Basso finished in fifth place, Bryan “pANcada” Luna came in seventh and Gustavo “Sacy” Rossi ended up in 12th. Sacy and Pancada were also among the top 10 players in KAST, and Less was the highest-ranked LOUD gamer in the ACS after finishing in 19th.
