It appears the inaugural VCT Americas split is set to begin with a bang—perhaps the most clouted matchup in all of VALORANT.
Taking place on Saturday, April 1, at 2pm CT, 100 Thieves vs. Sentinels will be the opening best-of-three of the VCT Americas 2023 regular season.
Since the season will consist of an eight-week, single round-robin format, this will also be the only guaranteed meeting between the two North American teams for the foreseeable future.
100 Thieves (top-eight finish) and Sentinels (top-32 finish) both saw their VCT LOCK//IN tournament hopes end at the hands of eventual event champions, Fnatic.
Before then, 100 Thieves took the São Paulo spotlight two more times than Sentinels, beating both EDward Gaming and FUT Esports in dramatic 2-1 fashion.
Only the top six of the 10 total VCT Americas teams from the regular season will advance to the league’s double-elimination bracket playoffs, where three spots will be up for grabs for Masters Tokyo.
Los Angeles will not only serve as the host city for this year’s VALORANT Champions but also the VCT Americas matches as well since the regular-season games will be held live at Riot Games Arena in Santa Monica.
As opposed to several other VCT teams, it seems both 100 Thieves and Sentinels will be standing pat with their personnel moving forward, with the exception of Sentinels looking for a new substitute to replace Hunter “SicK” Mims.
This match will mark the first face-off between 100 Thieves’ Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban and Sentinels’ Zachary “zekken” Patrone, Rory “dephh” Jackson, Don “SyykoNT” Muir, and Drew “DrewSpark” Spark-Whitworth since XSET released its VALORANT player roster and coaching staff in October.
