Sentinels VALORANT fans have plenty to cheer about tonight as the squad took down NRG in scintillating fashion in the VCT Americas Kickoff semifinal, thus booking the second spot at Masters Madrid alongside LOUD.
Sentinels were made to work for qualification from the moment VCT Kickoff began, but they survived the “group of death” with wins over 100 Thieves, Leviatán, and MIBR in the play-in before meeting and defeating NRG in the semifinal 2-1 (16-14, 8-13, 13-3). It’s the first time in over a year we’ll see Sentinels attend an international tournament: The last time we saw Sen City overseas was at LOCK//IN São Paulo last February.
The win was the best birthday gift ever for Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro who was over the moon following the series win against NRG. “We had to save the organization at least once, right?” he joked in the post-match interview with Smix. He went on to thank the front office staff, particularly head coach Adam Kaplan and his work with team captain Mouhamed “johnqt” Ouarid.
“We’re a team: We really focus on hanging out with each other and building that bond both in and out of the server,” Zellsis said, adding that trust among the team is such a huge factor in their early 2024 successes.
Zellsis (46-38, 1.29 rating) topped the rating charts for the series according to stats site VLR.gg, but it was the TenZ and zekken show with the pair combining for an epic 114 total kills and 32 opening kills. TenZ in particular was locked in, landing a critical four-kill at 11-12 on Sunset to keep Sentinels alive on the map.
Sentinels fought off three NRG map points to snatch Sunset 16-14 before Ethan’s 27-kill performance in NRG’s 13-8 win on Ascent set up a nailbiter final map on Split—or so we thought. Sentinels, behind captain johnqt’s 18-7 effort, disintegrated a shellshocked NRG who only mustered a single round on attack. A tiny glimpse of a chance emerged with a pistol round win but Sentinels were quick to snuff out any hope of a comeback, with birthday boy Zellsis closing out the 13-3 win in style.
Sentinels will join LOUD as the Americas representatives at Masters Madrid, but before the teams can pack for the flight out, they’ll meet head-to-head in the VCT Kickoff final tomorrow for the all-important three VCT points up for grabs.
