In a shocking fashion, Sentinels have fallen in the open qualifiers of VCT stage two’s Challengers One event. Surprisingly, the reigning Masters champions lost both maps, Ascent and Haven, by a 13-5 scoreline to Built By Gamers.
BBG are playing with a stand-in to start this phase of the VALORANT Champions Tour. They benched Mike “pho” Panza just a week prior and brought in Jake “POACH” Brumleve off of Andbox’s bench. POACH had two stellar maps against Sentinels while playing Omen, as did teammate Tristan “Critical” Trinacty on Sova.
Post-game, BBG’s Joseph “Bjor” Bjorklund confirmed POACH has stepped in to do the in-game calling as well. “Everybody was confident today,” he told the casters. Overall the team looked crisp in their site retakes as well as their pushes.
On the other side, Sentinels did not look like the same team that dominated the field at Masters. Missed shots, late rotations, and losing opening duels plagued the team all series. They only won one pistol round between both maps, and BBG stole the following round back with a force buy.
With the win, BBG have punched their ticket to Challengers One, following zero appearances at any of the Challengers events in phase one. Sentinels will have to run through the open qualifiers yet again for Challengers 2, and with the change in format, they’ll have to succeed there if they want any shot at making it to Iceland for Masters.
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