Team Envy’s mummAy gives insight, tips on playing Astra

Valorant’s newest agent, Astra, is a Ghanaian controller with abilities that can wreak havoc across the entire map. While at a glance her kit might seem overpowered, we wanted to ask somebody who has played her a lot at the professional level. For this, we chose none other than Team Envy’s Anthony "mummAy" DiPaolo. During the VCT Stage 2 Challengers qualifiers, mummAy stood out in picking Astra quite frequently, so he’s definitely an expert on the matter.

Nerd Street: Why did you choose to play Astra in VCT?

mummAy: My job is to figure out where the value of the new agent lies. When they release new agents, I troubleshoot them to see what I could use them for and where I could fit them into our comp. That’s my thinking when I see a new agent.

When I tested her for Riot, she seemed strong in PUGs [pick-up games]. She brings the most value as a controller for our playstyle so I thought, “let me pivot to this, throw it into our tournament play, and see how people react.”

The game right now is a lot of adaptation, so throwing Astra in and using her in tournaments seemed like the best play at that point in time, so we went with it.

Nerd Street: What do you think of her so far?

mummAy: She’s strong, and when she’s in the comp, it makes the other team worry about their strategy. Depending on whether or not they’re also running Astra, the strategy aspect changes drastically because at the beginning of the round she can drop her orbs and slow down any type of aggression or map control from the other team with her abilities. Her value is off the charts for the team.

Nerd Street: Do you think Riot are going to nerf her in the near future?

mummAy: I don’t think she needs a nerf or anything, she seems balanced. There’s a lot of tradeoffs and ways you can negatively impact your team if you don’t do things correctly. I feel like a lot of the agents are in a good place right now.

Read more: Which NA teams playing this weekend will qualify for Challengers Finals?

Nerd Street: How does she compare to other agents you’ve mained?

mummAy: She’s really high on the APM [actions per minute] chart because I need to go into my Astral Form, I need to place everything, and I need to be aware of my surroundings because my sound is muffled.

It’s a lot more thinking about the individual actions. There’s a lot of judgment calls to be made, and since nobody really has a set answer on what’s better in certain situations, I like to test things, see what works, and then mimic that in matches so I know the right pathways to take. There’s a lot of thinking about what you need to do with your team to make it all mesh well together.

Nerd Street: Have you noticed any other pros playing her well?

mummAy: The thing is, when we scrim, nobody really runs Astra. I feel like [Anthony] “vanity” [Valaspina] was a good Astra when I played against him in scrims, and I felt like “OK, this is annoying.”

Nerd Street: Why did you switch off of Astra in the upper bracket and lower bracket final of Challengers 1?

mummAy: We were trying a new comp, and when you run Astra, a lot of things are set. When you try a new comp, you have to be able to accommodate that comp, so I didn’t want to play Astra and try to adapt everything on the fly. I wanted to play Omen because I knew he would work in the comps we were playing on those maps.

Nerd Street: Any tips for aspiring Astra mains?

mummAy: Be aware of what’s happening with your cooldowns. You have to also be aware of your ability usage and communicate that to your team so they know when your abilities are ready. You have to be able to offer things up to your duelists in order to get the max value out of her kit.

Team Envy’s next match will be at the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers Finals that will take place from April 29 to May 2.

Lead image credit: Team Envy