Clove Valorant Agent Overview, Playstyle and Abilities

When considering Clove Valorant, it is no wonder that a Controller suddenly looks like an excellent option for brawls. They encourage players to take positions, trade off kills, and still contribute to the round, even after dying early, by using post-death smokes and the ability to reset through a second chance ultimate. This aggressive, impact-driven playstyle often appeals to players focused on faster improvement, similar to those who turn to a Valorant booster to accelerate their progress.

This is not a controller agent that would prefer sitting idle inside the spawn to create a smoke map for others to follow. Instead, you will derive maximum value from the controller when you position yourself near the action and use your utilities to turn that pressure into a win.

Who Is Clove in Valorant

Clove is a Valorant agent from Edinburgh, Scotland, and Riot’s first non-binary agent. In the broader Clove Valorant lore, they’re framed as a young agent with an unusual relationship to death, basically a young immortal who treats the line between living and dying like a revolving door.

Visually, Clove leans modern and punky: short hair with a dark-to-pinkish purple fade, plus a pink jacket and purple shorts. If you’ve seen the Valorant clove card and related cosmetics, the same butterfly and rebirth vibe shows up there, too.

Clove’s kit is more relevant than their character, who encourages you to get close to your opponents, make confident trades, and be a menace that forces enemies to think about their timings, since you can always blind them even after your demise.

Clove’s Abilities

The following explanation highlights how clove valorant skills can be used efficiently in-game. The focus of Clove is all about space control, tempo manipulation, and making the best use out of an eliminated enemy.

Ruse (E)

Ruse e is an ability that allows Clove to influence the game even after the agent is dead. The thing is, that Ruse is the main thing that defines why Clove is so unique compared to other Controllers.

To start casting clouds, you need to select target locations with the use of your top-down view. Pressing the FIRE button places clouds in selected spots, while ALT Firing confirms the action and launches clouds. That confirmation process is important because you can stage smokes and then launch them when your team is actually ready.

Some useful hints that can help you win more rounds:

• Don’t cover the whole site, but rather choose the most important angle to hide your team from.
• Remember visual clues about how clove’s clouds will fall and don’t give yourself away through some popular angles.
• You can confirm the action even when Clove is about to die to help teammates enter or plant a bomb.

Meddle (Q)

Meddle q is Clove’s decay ability. You throw a fragment of immortality essence that pops after a short delay and applies a decay debuff to targets caught inside.

How to get real value from it:

• Toss it at default corners right before your entry swings. The goal is to make the first duel unfair, not to “tag someone” and hope.
• Pair it with any teammate who has reliable damage. Even chip damage becomes lethal when enemies temporarily decays.
• Don’t waste it on max-range guesses unless you have info. Meddle is strongest when you can immediately capitalize.

Pick-Me-Up (C)

The tempo is represented by pick me up. By killing or even cloving enemies, one can instantly use it in order to gain haste and temporary health buff. This is what enables Clove to be able to participate in two fights without getting reset by the defending team.

Mistakes that one should never do with this skill:

• To use it without being able to engage once again.
• Being too late in using it because you need haste as fast as possible while at the same time enemies are in disarray after being attacked.

Not Dead Yet (X)

Not Dead Yet represents the ult for the clove. After getting killed, one needs to revive using the ability. However, to successfully make the switch, you need to kill an enemy or provide them with a damaging assist during the cooldown period.

How to convert the ult:

• Use it not as a hero play but rather as a way to create a trade situation by reviving among your teammates.
• Do not return back to the same angle where you got eliminated unless you know how to punish enemies (smokes or teamplay).
• When the situation is hard, try to achieve an assist play.

How to Play Clove Valorant

How to play clove valorant? In short, play Clove on trade distances: Close enough to fight, but not close enough that you are the first dead each round.

Play Clove Like an Aggressive Controller, Not a Duelist

You can play Clove proactively without running into every corner. The kit is designed to play aggressively without being aggressive:

• Set up your teammates with a smoke grenade and then join the fight with your team.
• If you won the fight, follow it up with a pick-up grenade. Keep moving.
• If you lost the fight, your teammates will get value from the grenade anyway, and you’ll have a second life.

As a result, playing Clove makes you think of both classic smokes and the aggressiveness of a Duelist. But you aren’t replacing your Duelist; rather, you’re improving your role.

Smokes That Actually Win the Round

The most effective way to play Clove is through smokes creating uncertainty. You want the enemy team to second-guess whether or not your last smoke was real.

Good habits include:

• Always smoke the defender’s best angle before making them push through smoke.
• As a defender, always save a smoke grenade to stall the spike after getting it placed down.
• As a smoker, limit your use of grenades to protect the spike and deny retakes after getting killed.

Using Meddle to Force Mistakes

While the damage of Meddle isn’t great, its purpose isn’t really about dealing damage. By placing enemies inside of a cloud, you are putting them under decision-making pressure.

Use it by:

• Aim the enemy’s escape path and wait to land the shot when they decide to jump away.
• Throw the Meddle Grenade in such a way that forces them to choose between cover and their angle.

Surviving the “Second Life” Moment

After using the ability, you are effectively borrowing time from Clove. Your goal in this phase is to buy yourself some extra time before they catch up.

Some tips include:

• Try to smoke the angle that killed you if possible.
• Immediately reposition since even one step can change your pre-aim.
• Make sure to swing with at least one other player.

Tips to Rank Up with Clove

You can rank quickly on Clove because you won’t lose your worth when dying, yet you should practice a lot and be consistent to rank up on Clove.

1) Don’t Die with Smokes Unused

If you’re about to take a risk while spying the enemy, plant Ruse right away. In case you fail, your squad will have the option to use you as a cover, and you’ll remain to be the controller rather than a fragger.

2) Farm Tempo on Pistols and Thrifty Rounds

Using Decay together with perfect trading at the time when people’s HP is very low gives amazing results. Using Meddle in one shot may change the whole game because now the opponents cannot survive your lethal shots.

3) Use Pick-Me-Up to Chain Fights, Not to “Heal”

Use Pick-Me-Up as an opportunity to start another combat immediately. It is great to see how effective Clove games can be: trading, absorbing bullets, moving to the new place, taking a fight and resetting with haste.

4) Ult With a Plan, Not a Prayer

Using Not Dead Yet effectively requires having your mates fighting with you. Otherwise, if you resuscitate into one-vs-many situation, it will become just a wasted effort.

5) Review One Thing After Each Loss

If you have problems with progressing, pick any of these points to improve:

• Were your smokes deployed too late?
• Did you use Meddle but didn’t follow it up?
• Did you use Pick-Me-Up while there was no battle expected?

Improving even one point will change the whole gameplay in your advantage.