---
title: 'Valorant''s Rank #1 Duelist Will Blow Your Mind'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=8z_xjfN_9Sw'
video_id: '8z_xjfN_9Sw'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 785
---

# Valorant's Rank #1 Duelist Will Blow Your Mind

> Source: [Valorant's Rank #1 Duelist Will Blow Your Mind](https://youtube.com/watch?v=8z_xjfN_9Sw)

## Summary

This video analyzes the gameplay of Gloex, a former number one Radiant player in EU and professional player for Koi, to uncover the secrets behind his dominant duelist performances. The analysis focuses on three key areas: his exceptional ability to read opponent movement, his mastery of creating and converting openings, and his consistent attention to detail. The video provides actionable insights for players looking to improve their own ranked gameplay.

### Key Points

- **Gloex's Impressive Stats** [00:01] — Gloex, former number one Radiant player in EU and pro for Koi, peaked at over 1,200 RR with almost an 80% win rate. These stats are considered absurd even at the highest level.
- **Mechanics Stem from Awareness** [00:27] — Gloex's mechanical ability comes from his awareness and rotations, not just raw aim. He plays less than other Radiant players and doesn't even use the range, but his ability to predict movement on a macro scale sets him apart.
- **Reading Movement Under Pressure** [01:08] — Gloex excels at predicting opponent movement during fights, such as knowing when to expect a wide swing, jiggle peak, or slow peak. This allows him to position and pre-fire perfectly, as shown in a clip where he predicts a Clove's reaction to his satchel.
- **Never Gets Lazy** [02:12] — A key phrase to sum up Gloex's play style is that he never gets lazy. He is consistently more careful than other players in his lobbies, which contributes to his high win rate.
- **Predicting Cipher's Movement** [03:06] — In a clip against Cipher, Gloex expects Cipher to jiggle peak and then wide swing. He holds tight to the corner initially, then adjusts to hold a wider angle, resulting in an easier fight mechanically.
- **Analyzing Fights with Replay System** [04:14] — To improve, players should slow down fights using the replay system to understand the details and context of situations. Context is crucial, especially when analyzing another player's gameplay.
- **Mastering the Duelist Role** [04:56] — Gloex has mastered his role as a duelist, primarily playing Neon, Raze, and Jett. He is world-class at creating and converting openings, and he is unusually comfortable in chaotic situations.
- **Hyperaggressive Pace with Minimal Mistakes** [05:21] — Gloex keeps a hyperaggressive pace while avoiding mistakes, which allows his team to time their utility smoothly. He uses Neon's run to jump spot and jiggle every corner, maintaining pace and clearing angles efficiently.
- **Knowing When to Slow Down** [06:25] — Gloex knows when to take his foot off the gas, such as waiting for utility and team spacing at a choke point, leading to a more explosive entry.
- **Execution and Breaking Crossfires** [06:52] — Gloex has a clearly defined way of entrying, using utility to isolate players and break up crossfires. He makes split-second decisions to take advantage of openings before rotators can flood in.
- **Preparing Entries in Custom Games** [07:46] — To improve entries, players should hop into a custom game and think through what space is most important to control on a site, then build an entry to get control of that position.
- **Converting Openings** [08:43] — Converting an entry means maximizing the amount of space given by a kill. Gloex knows how much pressure to apply and when, turning opening kills into full site takes or aggressive timings.
- **Scenario 1: Weak Site** [09:23] — If the site is weak after an opening kill, Gloex acts quickly to abuse the weakness, waiting only for minimal utility like smokes. He goes aggressive to create space and save utility for post-plant.
- **Scenario 2: Fast Timing** [10:17] — After an opening kill, Gloex pushes aggressively to take positions defenders don't expect, cutting off rotations. This is controlled aggression, not overheating, because he reads the enemy's position correctly.
- **Implementing Timings in Your Game** [11:35] — To use timings, you must understand what causes defenders to rotate and where they were positioned. This can be developed by watching VODs and paying attention to your own team's movements.
- **Controlled Aggression vs Overheating** [12:27] — The difference between overheating and dying versus controlled aggression is the correct read on the enemy position. Knowing when to expect rotators allows you to manage sound and space effectively.

### Conclusion

Gloex's dominance as a duelist comes from his exceptional game sense, particularly his ability to read opponent movement and convert openings into map control. By focusing on awareness, preparation, and controlled aggression, any player can improve their duelist play and climb the ranked ladder.

## Transcript

seeing this enemy duelist tracker. You think he's a smurf or a cheater. However, you'll be surprised to find out that this is not a smurf. These are real stats from Gloex, the former number one Radiant player in EU and professional
player for Koi, peing at over 1,200 RR. That's right, almost an 80% win rate in reached Radiant multiple times and coached others to the top of the leaderboard, I can tell you these numbers are absurd. So, how does he do
it? After hours of studying his VODs, here are three reasons why Gloex dominates EU ranked as a dualist. We all know no one's hitting 1200 RR without great mechanics, and Globex is no exception. But everyone in Radiant has
Gloex plays considerably less than other Radiant players who have reached rank one. In fact, according to statements made on stream, he doesn't even play the range and has only recently started being consistent with aim trainers. Most
of Glove X's mechanical ability actually stems from his awareness and rotations. Let's explore how his ability to predict movement on a macro scale and Globax's dominant duelist performances. The first and most important skill that
leads to his mechanical success is the way Glowback reads movement under pressure. This isn't necessarily unique, but he's definitely better at this than most other players at this level. We all know that with the various movement
as Neon's bunny hopping or Whlay's double dash, predicting movement is crucial. And knowing when to expect a wide swing, jiggle peak, or slow peak, and positioning. But predicting movement is more than just crosshair placement.
just putting your crosshair on a corner, but we can see from this clip that it's much more than that. After spotting the clove, he knows exactly how they'll react to his satchel in a split second. This results in his cross placement,
movement, and pre-fire being almost picture perfect. Globeex's jump spot with a boombot made Clo very vulnerable to further utility, dual peaks, or a double peak. They had to reposition and could only go right due to the satchel
split-second reads on movement that allows for consistency. But what makes Glowback stand out is how often he chooses the right jump spot or jiggle peak. He's just that 1% more careful than the other players in these lobbies.
And if there were one phrase to sum up Gloex's play style, it would be that he never gets lazy. Now, Gloex is definitely a talented player, but to be able to rank up and even reach Radiant, you don't need to be a prodigy. If you
dream rank without spending thousands of hours grinding alone, my team of Radiant and BCT coaches can help you out. The Immortal Remap program has helped thousands of players rank up in just a few weeks. For example, just in this
current season alone, these students of mine gained 500 to 800 RR in just four in our ability to get you results that if you don't gain at least 500 RR in 10 weeks, will either coach you for free until you hit your goals or we'll give
can check out what our students have to say and even book a free strategy call with me or one of our coaches using the link down below so we can take a look at a good fit. Now, back to the video. In this next clip, we see another example
of Globex reading the opponent's movement during a fight. However, this that led to this fight. In this scenario, Globex is expecting Cipher to position to cut off his rotate. This could be a crucial fight. A kill here
could provide an opening for his team to TP back to B or give timings to his teammates on A. However, at the radiant level, Cipher isn't going to carelessly unchecked for this long. Globeex knows Cipher will probably jiggle him here. So
he holds tight to the corner initially and after the jiggle peak, he knows Cipher will then wide swing. So he quickly adjusts his movement to hold a wider angle. So how does he know this? Because players at this level will often
crosser closer to an angle, then follow it by wide swinging to increase the the small repositioning also stops Cipher swinging past the angle and wall banging him through the corner. And it's important to note that while this simply
seems like Golax has better mechanics in cipher, hitting the shot actually came from his ability to read and understand the situation, his ability to predict the cipher's intention leads to a much easier fight mechanically. So, how do we
Well, of course, it'll help to watch fights. But don't forget, when you try to analyze your fights, you have to slow is in a flow state, like in this last example, things slow down. Time stresses
hundreds of small decisions every minute. So, if you try to analyze your you'll have to slow down the action using the replay system or watch the understand the details and context of the situation. Context will often give
especially if you're looking at another player's gameplay. All right, so now that we know he's got amazing mechanics and he understands how to read opponent's movement, no surprise there. However, as a rank one duelist who
primarily plays neon, rays, and jet, Gloex has also mastered his role and is world class at creating and converting openings. While it's not the only important skill, we know that the ability to create openings is obviously
are vital if you want to have an impact as a duelist player, but Globex is unusually comfortable in these chaotic situations. His secrets lie in the consistent attention to detail and the exploitation of openings on the map.
From playing hours of ranked and plenty of scrims and custom time, he's able to clear from his clips. Let's take this neon clip for example. The main advantage Globex has here is his ability to keep a hyperaggressive pace while
avoiding mistakes. This is what makes a good entry in ranked as it allows your team to keep it simple and time their utility smoothly based on your pace. Any disruption to this natural flow can hurt your teammates's utility timings and
requires much more communication, which as we all know is not what we want to depend on in ranked. This has also given the chamber and nearby teammates minimal time to react. However, trying to entry at this pace is difficult, especially
average player might end up making mistakes with their pathing and sight clearance. And this is where Glowback stands out. Using his neon run to jump spot and jiggle every corner while still maintaining the pace means he's able to
going for openings. And this is much quicker and far cheaper than having to use info ability for every corner and is a core skill for any serious neon player. Now, however, we also see that he knows when to take his foot off the
gas. When he reaches a choke, he momentarily waits for utility and for his team's spacing to become closer, which leads to a more explosive entry him. Combined with the explosiveness of the sight entry makes it very difficult
for the chamber to have any impact or get any support quick enough, resulting in an overwhelmingly aggressive sight execute. Now, just as important as the pace is the execution. Glowbox has a clearly defined way of entrying and a
mechanics, which leads to some of the smoothest duel scopes you've ever seen. As we may know, a huge part of any sight entry is breaking up a crossfire to dualist player, this is to be expected.
In our previous clip, Gobex uses a novel stun to isolate the backside player from the waterfall player, and this allows him to go for a slide and puts him in a the judge by. But what makes him a great entry player is how fast he makes and
executes these decisions. Remember, he has to do this in a split second as player. The longer he takes to make the move, the more rotates can come in and utility used against his team. The worst case scenario for a duelist is one in
which the rotators from B, for example, are able to flood through the waterfall and CT smokes. If this happens, the attackers never actually gain full crucial that when you do see a window of opportunity as a duelist that you take
it. And if you want to have clean, smooth entries like this, the first mechanics of the entry. And no, I'm not saying you should go and play Kovac for 5 hours. What I mean is that you should hop into a custom game and think through
consider what space is most important for you to control on whatever site. Then build an entry to get control of this position. For example, backside A with B site on bind. So if you're on jet, consider how you exit your smoke
it up. And perhaps you can even start implementing details such as checking which teammates's utility you could realistically ask for in a rank setting. And if you're a neon or a race, think about which players you can isolate with
your utility to break up crossfires. And after this, the next time you approach fall into place and you'll know what to do, leading to faster and smoother entries. So TLDDR, my point is to be prepared. So now that our entries are
finding these openings. However, as a duelist player, there's another very important step you must consider if you want to have maximum impact in your games. Glowbacks and many other top tier duels find success not just from getting
So what do we mean by converting it is maximizing the amount of space given to you by an entry. For example, you can get an opening kill B main on ascent, but how much space can you take
from that kill? Perhaps you can get into market and cut off rotations, or perhaps there's actually little free space to be taken. The key is to know how much pressure to apply, when to apply that amount, and how. So, to visualize this,
common scenarios after an opening kill. The first scenario is when the site is weaker. Perhaps you killed the killjoy more player to be there. In this case, the site is probably weak, but not
clear, meaning we have the potential to turn our entry kill into a full opening. We know the enemies probably aren't starting more than two players on B, and as it makes sense much more often than it doesn't. However, we need to consider
that when we do make an opening, it has almost certainly caused a supportive reaction from the defenders. So, we must act quickly to abuse this weakness. In this case, we wait for minimal utility, only absolute necessities like smokes,
example of this. After the opening kill, Globex instantly goes aggressive in an attempt to create space. He's not waiting for smokes or utility because he heaven and tree rotates or utility in this choke. The risk pays off here and
saves his team a lot of utility that they can then use for the post plant. The second common situation is when our opening kill allows for a fast timing. This is basically just pushing after you get your opening frags to take
aggressive positions that the defenders are not expecting. Simple, right? But listen up because this is where most duelists go wrong and overheat. You need to understand the difference between carelessly overheating, pushing and
a quick kill on a careless enemy. So to convert entries, Globex often makes use of movement utility or in this case the position that he has killed the enemy perceive his position. From the
defender's perspective, they only just saw a jet die and probably think that he died from B main. They're expecting a bit more time before seeing an enemy pushing market or CT. Instead, because Gloex was so close to the jet here, he's
able to go hyper aggressive into their spawn and cut off the rotation while his team is still actively in the process of clearing the site. He then goes back and effect is also multiplied by the fact that there are still defenders on the B
site, meaning the rotating defenders likely expect that the attackers to focus sight first, especially the duelist. The beauty of this is that it you want to go aggressive or find timings, and it is a core part of your
game sense. So, how do we implement all this into our own game? To make use of these timings as a duelist, you must understand precisely what causes the defenders to rotate and when, as well as where they were most likely to be
positioned when the rotation started. This is much easier in the early round predictable, and you can develop this skill by watching bots and looking at attention to how your own team moves in your rank teams. Doing so allows you to
point and time they started rotating, and as long as you combine it with the the rotation. For example, if we push Killjoy on B, that's going to cause Omen on A to start rotating. And if we know roughly where Omen was when this kill
happened, and we know how fast he's rotating, then we know when to expect them to be in our crosshair. If you do this, then you'll know exactly when to expect rotators. And you can manage the sound you'll make and how much space you
ready for a fight. So, in other words, the difference between overheating and dying versus controlled aggression is the correct read on the enemy position. the best players you've ever played against seemingly teleport around the
their positioning. And of course, there are many entry scenarios that you may be presented with in any given ranked game, especially as player tendencies change it's essential to continue self analyzing and adjusting your decisions
based on the feedback that the game provides. Thanks for watching.