Clove got nerfed in March and is still the most-picked, highest-win-rate agent in Valorant. That combination — weaker kit, dominant results — is worth explaining rather than just repeating as a stat. This guide covers her exact ability timings (including the two Pick-Me-Up timers most write-ups collapse into one), why the win-rate number holds up against a real Controller comparison, her best maps, and who to pair her with. If you’re new to Valorant entirely, start with our Valorant beginner’s guide first — this one assumes you already know the basics and want to specialize in Clove. Numbers below come from Riot’s official VALORANT wiki and current Patch 13.00 competitive data.
Quick Start: Playing Clove for the First Time
Skip the lore. Here’s what to actually do in your first few games:
- Buy Meddle (250cr) before Ruse (150cr) on your first full-buy round if you can only afford one — decay wins more duels than a smoke does
- Drop Ruse on chokepoints your team is already holding, not on random flanks — she only gets 2 charges per round
- Every time you get a kill or assist, check for the pink vignette on your screen edges — that’s your cue that Pick-Me-Up is live
- Don’t hoard Not Dead Yet. If you’re the last one alive in a losing gunfight, use it — a missed activation window means the ultimate point is wasted
- Play defense-heavy maps first. Her defensive win rate (52.9%) outpaces her attack-side win rate (49.0%), so she’s more forgiving on the CT-style side while you learn her
How much of that changes depends on why you’re picking her up:
| Player Type | Priority |
|---|---|
| New player | Land the kill first, worry about Pick-Me-Up timing later — the movement speed bonus is forgiving even if you’re a second slow |
| Casual player | Learn one Ruse smoke per map (the site you defend most) instead of memorizing all of them |
| Hardcore / optimiser | Drill the two Pick-Me-Up timers below until the vignette cue and the decay curve are automatic |
| Completionist | Learn Ruse’s post-death radius restriction map-by-map — it’s smaller than her alive-cast radius and catches people off guard |
If your keybinds are still on default, it’s worth sorting those out before you’re relying on fast ability swaps mid-round — see our Valorant keybinds guide for a competitive-friendly layout.
Clove’s Full Kit, With the Timing Windows Most Guides Get Wrong
Riot’s own ability reveal article describes the kit in plain terms, but the numbers that actually matter in a round live in the wiki’s stat tables. The one that trips people up is Pick-Me-Up, because it actually has two separate timers that most write-ups collapse into one.
Pick-Me-Up (200 credits, one use per round)
Timer one: you have up to 6 seconds after damaging an enemy for that damage to still count toward a kill credit or assist — if they die within that window from your damage, you’re eligible. Timer two is the one that matters in the moment: once that kill or assist actually lands, the official ability page lists roughly 4.5 seconds to press the button before eligibility expires. Activate it, and you get a 0.7-second windup into +15% movement speed for 3 seconds and up to 50 overhealth that decays across 10 seconds.
The mechanism that explains why this matters: overhealth starts decaying the instant it’s applied, not after a delay. Pop it 4 seconds after the kill instead of immediately, and you’ve already burned a third of the buff’s value before you’ve moved. Treat the vignette cue as a “use it now” signal, not a “you have time” one.
Ruse (150 credits, 2 charges per round, 40-second cooldown)
Cast while alive, Ruse smoke sits for 14 seconds. Cast while dead, it only lasts 6 — Riot cut that number down from a full 14 seconds specifically to reduce how much Clove could still control the map after dying. She’s also capped at one charge usable post-death, and the placement radius shrinks to the area immediately around where she died, so you can’t drop smoke across the map from the grave.
Meddle (250 credits)
A thrown decay grenade that detonates about 0.75 seconds after it hits a surface — not on impact, which rules out most cross-map trick lineups you’d use with a standard flash. Anyone caught in the 4-meter blast radius takes up to 90 HP of decay over 5 seconds. Throw it before a fight starts, not during — a decayed enemy dies to hits that wouldn’t otherwise kill them, so the value is in the peek that follows, not the throw itself.
Not Dead Yet (Ultimate, 8 orbs)
After dying, you get a 3-second window to activate. Do, and Clove revives at full HP with roughly 2 seconds of intangibility — enough to reposition, not enough to fight. From there, you have 12 seconds to secure a kill or a damaging assist or you die permanently. It’s a genuinely high-risk ultimate: reviving into a 1-for-1 trade you can’t close out just delays the loss.
| Timer | Length | Miss it and… |
|---|---|---|
| Pick-Me-Up damage eligibility | 6s before target’s death | No overheal available even if they die |
| Pick-Me-Up activation window | ~4.5s after the kill | Buff is gone, no second chance that round |
| Not Dead Yet activation | 3s after death | You stay dead, ultimate point spent for nothing |
| Not Dead Yet survival | 12s after reviving | Second death is permanent |
If you’re dead with Ruse still charged and enemies are pushing a site your team is holding, drop the post-death smoke to block their entry — don’t save it for a Not Dead Yet play that requires you to also win a gunfight afterward. The smoke is the guaranteed value; the revive is the gamble.
Why a 52.9% Win Rate Made Her the Meta Controller
Clove sits at a 52.9% win rate and a 13.8% pick rate as of Patch 13.00 — the highest of any of the 29 agents in the game, not just among Controllers, according to MetaBot.GG’s Clove overview. What makes that number worth explaining rather than just reporting: Riot nerfed her a few months before this data was recorded, and she still leads.
Patch 12.05, which landed March 17, 2026, cut her post-death Ruse duration from 14 seconds to 6 and shrank Meddle’s blast radius from 6 meters to 4. Both changes target the exact thing that made her unique — the ability to keep contesting space after she’s already dead. She got measurably weaker in that specific dimension and her win rate held at the top of the leaderboard anyway.
The mechanism is that Clove’s floor is higher than other Controllers’, not that her ceiling moved. A Viper or Omen who dies stops contributing utility for the round. Clove dying still leaves a shrunk-but-real smoke on the table, plus a shot at a second life through Not Dead Yet. Losing the trade with her costs the enemy team less certainty than losing a trade against any other Controller, and that shows up across a full season of matches rather than in any single clip.
Here’s how she stacks up against the rest of the role, per MetaBot.GG’s agent win-rate tracker:
| Controller | Win Rate | Pick Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Clove | 52.9% | 13.8% |
| Viper | 50.6% | 2.1% |
| Brimstone | 48.5% | 0.8% |
| Omen | 47.7% | 2.2% |
| Harbor | 47.6% | 0.4% |
| Astra | 47.3% | 1.6% |
The pick rate gap is the more telling number here. Clove’s win rate is 2.3 percentage points clear of the next best Controller, Viper — a real but not enormous gap. Her pick rate is over six times higher than any other Controller’s. That combination means players aren’t just winning more when they pick her; a much larger slice of the population is choosing her over the alternatives every single game, which is a stronger meta signal than win rate alone (a niche pick with a small sample can post a misleadingly high number; a pick rate this dominant can’t).
Best Maps to Play Clove — and When to Avoid Her
Clove has a positive win rate on all 12 competitive maps, so there’s no map where she’s an objectively bad pick. But the spread between her best and worst maps is 5 percentage points, which is enough to matter at higher ranks, based on MetaBot.GG’s 584,065-match map breakdown.
| Map | Win Rate |
|---|---|
| Abyss | 56.1% |
| Summit | 55.2% |
| Ascent | 54.3% |
| Haven | 53.2% |
| Pearl | 53.0% |
| Bind | 52.7% |
| Breeze | 52.6% |
| Lotus | 52.4% |
| Split | 52.0% |
| Fracture | 51.4% |
| Corrode | 51.4% |
| Sunset | 51.1% |
Abyss and Summit lead because both maps reward a Controller who can hold a chokepoint solo without a second rotation option nearby — exactly what Ruse’s after-death coverage is built for. Sunset sits lowest, likely because its layout favors duelist-driven skirmishes over the slower, smoke-anchored play Clove enables.
When not to pick her: if the enemy comp is loaded with Skye, Neon, or Tejo, expect a harder game — MetaBot.GG’s counter data shows those three currently perform best against Clove specifically. And if your economy is stuck on Sheriff-only eco rounds, know that Clove’s weapon win rates are weakest with the Sheriff (47.2%), Bucky (49.4%), and Ares (49.5%) — she performs best with Heavy weapons at a 62.5% win rate, so don’t expect her kit to bail out a bad-gun round the way some duelists can.
Want a Controller who plays the field angle rather than the site-anchor role? Our Brimstone guide breaks down why his numbers look very different from Clove’s despite both being Controllers.
Best Agent Pairings
Clove’s value multiplies with agents who can exploit a smoke that stays useful even after she’s dead. Community testing catalogued by 1v9.gg’s pairing breakdown points to these as the strongest combinations:
| Agent | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Cypher | Tripwires placed inside Ruse smoke turn it into an ambush zone the enemy can’t see coming |
| Sova | Shock Bolt through a decaying Meddle cloud stacks damage that would otherwise need two separate utility uses |
| Skye | Trailblazer reveals positions through the smoke while Guiding Light finishes the disorient — pairs directly with Meddle’s decay for fast picks |
| Yoru | His clone can move through Ruse smoke as a decoy, drawing fire before the real flank |
| Phoenix | Curveball thrown through Clove’s smoke blinds enemies who can’t see it coming, setting up Hot Hands follow-up |
| Iso | Undercut lands harder on targets already reduced by Meddle’s decay |
| Gekko | Wingman sent through the smoke effectively reveals enemy positions without exposing a teammate |
None of these require your team to run double Controller — they’re single-agent synergies that work in a standard five-stack composition. If Skye’s on your list, our Skye guide covers her flash timings in the same level of detail as the Pick-Me-Up breakdown above.
FAQ
Is Clove still worth learning after the Patch 12.05 nerf?
Yes — the nerf only reduced her post-death window, and she still leads every Controller in both win rate and pick rate on the current patch. The core of her kit (pre-death Ruse, Meddle, Pick-Me-Up) wasn’t touched at all.
What’s the actual Pick-Me-Up timing I need to remember?
Two numbers: you need to have damaged the target within 6 seconds of their death to be eligible, then you have about 4.5 seconds after the kill lands to press the button. Most guides only mention one of these and it’s usually the wrong one for in-game decision-making — the 4.5-second number is the one you actually react to.
Is Clove better than Omen or Viper right now?
By the numbers, yes — she beats both on win rate and by a wide margin on pick rate. That said, Omen’s flash-and-teleport kit still has situational value on maps with tight, single-chokepoint sites, and Viper’s wall covers long sightlines Clove’s smoke can’t fully replace. “Best on average” isn’t “best in every situation.”
Can enemies tell where I died when I drop a post-death Ruse smoke?
The smoke itself doesn’t reveal your death location beyond what’s visually obvious from the cloud’s placement, but the radius is restricted to near where you died — so a smoke appearing tight to one corner of a site does tell attentive enemies roughly where that fight happened.
Key Takeaways
Clove earned the top win rate in the game by having a floor no other Controller has — she still contributes after she dies, even with that ability nerfed. Memorize the two Pick-Me-Up timers (6-second eligibility, ~4.5-second activation), pick one map from the table above to specialize in, and pair her with an agent who can exploit the smoke rather than just standing behind it.
Verified on Patch 13.00 (July 2026). Win rates, pick rates, and ability numbers may shift with future balance updates — check in-game tooltips if you’re reading this well after publication.
Sources
- Clove — official VALORANT Wiki (wiki.playvalorant.com)
- Pick-me-up — official VALORANT Wiki (wiki.playvalorant.com)
- “Clove: Death Is Only The Beginning” — official Riot VALORANT dev article (playvalorant.com)
- Patch 12.05 Clove balance changes (via VALORANT Updated)
- Valorant Clove Guide (2026) — S-Tier Controller, MetaBot.GG
- Valorant Clove Best Maps (2026), MetaBot.GG
- Highest Win Rate Valorant Agents, MetaBot.GG
- Clove Counters & Best Weapons in Valorant 2026, MetaBot.GG
- Valorant: 7 Best Agents To Pair With Clove, 1v9.gg
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.