Sentinels’ 2023 VALORANT season is over, despite seismic levels of “hopium” from fans, following a VCT Americas LCQ run that started strong with a win over 100 Thieves before losses to Cloud9 and Leviatán brought the run to an end.
Champions 2023 hasn’t even started yet, but fans are already looking ahead to the offseason and what Sentinels can bring to the table next year after a chaotic first year in partnership. For some of VCT Americas’ analysts, who have watched the team play all year, the answer lies in a player who just missed out on making it to the league the long way.
Related: VCT Americas LCQ 2023 scores, schedule, and format
In the latest episode of the Plat Chat VALORANT podcast, the trio of Sideshow, Bren, and Mimi all spoke fondly of Mouhamed “johnqt” Ouarid, the in-game leader and sentinel player for M80. The M80 roster, consisting of former Ghost Gaming, NRG, and Version1 players, came up just short of reaching VCT Americas via Ascension, losing in the grand finals against fellow NA team The Guard.
According to Sideshow, the struggles for Sentinels began when they swapped roles, moving Sacy to controller, pANcada to sentinel, and at-the-time IGL dephh to initiator. “They should have never moved dephh to initiator in the first place, dephh should have locked in sentinel jail, putting up three kills a half, and letting the rest of the team carry him while he calls,” Sideshow said.
“Sentinels need to be dropping the bag for johnqt; [he’s] really the person they need to be looking towards. A sentinel IGL is absolutely necessary for this team,” Sideshow said. Johnqt’s kill numbers may not pop when looking at stats, but his shotcalling, utility usage, and clutch factor were huge for M80 across NA Challengers and Ascension.
Related: The Guard VALORANT coach praises team mentality amid layoffs: ‘It was really scary for them’
While both Bren and Mimi agreed that a change is necessary, Mimi expressed doubt that the organization would make a move, claiming Sentinels is more interested in the clout and “engagement” that comes from having big names on the team. But Sideshow retorted that both Sacy and pANcada wouldn’t be happy if the focus wasn’t on winning.
The trio was split on what to do with TenZ, though, with Mimi and Sideshow favoring swapping him out, while Bren suggested he work on expanding his agent pool and moving away from entry duelist agents. Mimi even suggested another M80 player fill his spot: Marki “NiSMO’ Tayar, who rotated between KAY/O, Skye, and Raze during the team’s Ascension run.
What Sentinels should do and what it will do could very easily be two different things. In fact, the team may not be able to pry either player away from M80 at all. As an organization, M80 is very new, having been formed by former XSET co-founder Marco Mereu just this past December. Just this May, though, M80 raised $3 million in seed funding and told GamesBeat there’s an opportunity now to bring on more investment. What this indicates is that M80 might not be interested in selling off players to partnered teams, which means Sentinels could have to look elsewhere.
