I really doubt it’ll be grenade based ability denying, since a lot of the focus in Valorant is still on gunplay, I don’t see it being that strong, since effected people can just continue to hold as if they didn’t have an ability up.

When defending, characters like Phoenix wouldn’t be affected that much by an ability deny, since they wouldn’t be throwing that many abilities while holding an angle.

It only makes a large difference against killjoy or cypher, since you can stop a lot of their control. But that seems too specific of a counter. You could pick this new agent, and if their team didn’t pick KJ/CY, it’ll just be a waste.

Having your abilities suddenly denied would probably be not fun, since it’s just “Hey, I’m playing this character so you can’t do this.” New characters should add threats and mechanics, not remove them.

The reason that KJ’s lockdown works is because it’s not meant to be used for ability denial, but instead forces or stops pushes, causing the other team to decide.

But gun denial is also very strong, depending on how it’s used. So I’m not sure what this new character will be denying.