Kyedae begs VALORANT fans to have ’empathy’ for TenZ amid Sentinels crisis

"He's only human."

TenZ, wearing a Sentinels jersey and lit in bright red light, looks into the camera.
Photo via Riot Games

The animosity around Sentinels is growing since yesterday. TenZ, the team’s star duelist, played against Leviatán despite a hand injury, but they lost the series after a poor performance on decider Pearl, and abruptly parted ways with head coach Don “SyykoNT” Muir just three games into VCT Americas.

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TenZ was the lowest-rated player in the series against Leviatán, which some fans have reacted to by attacking him all on social media. This prompted Kyedae, TenZ’s girlfriend and a popular streamer, to ask for “empathy” during TenZ’s rough stretch and her fight against cancer.

“Please be understanding, Tyson HAD to play [versus Leviatán],” Kyedae said on Twitter today. “I’m sure if he had the choice he would have sat out. He played with a joint infection and just tested positive [for] Covid this morning. He’s only human. And I know I’m going to get attacked in the comments for this tweet. I do not care. I just feel constantly hopeless for the situation I’m in and if I could, I would have hid the fact that I have cancer from everyone as well as himself so he could continue to focus fully.”

TenZ was arguably the worst player in the server in Sentinels vs. Leviatán next to Sacy as he finished with 0.72 rating, 149 ACS, and -14 K/D, according to VLR.gg’s statistics, while playing with a joint infection in his hand. He also underperformed last week on April 9 aginst NRG but Sentinels were completely shut down on Icebox (13-2).

The reason why TenZ is playing amid Kyedae’s battle against leukemia and now with an injury is likely because Sentinels’ sixth player, Marved, is supposedly still sorting out his visa to travel to Los Angeles. Although some fans are blaming TenZ for his recent performances, others have sided with him as they understand what he’s going through at the moment.

Sentinels will come back to the server this Friday to face LOUD and try to secure their second victory to become 2-2 in VCT Americas. Former strategic coach Adam Kaplan has been promoted to head coach, which means we could see some changes in both Sentinels’ comps moving forward and player swaps should Marved become available.

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Image of Leonardo Biazzi
Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.