The dust has settled at the final North American VALORANT event, with favorites Sentinels taking three straight maps over the surprising Version1 roster in the grand finals. Both teams now look ahead to the final event of the stage, the Masters Two LAN final in Reykjavík, Iceland.
Version1 took the opportunity to try something new on Bind, with Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro taking on Viper while Anthony “vanity” Malaspina surprised everyone with a Yoru pick. V1 found success on the defending site but couldn’t break through the Sentinels second-half defense, and the Masters One champs took map one 13-8.
While V1 opted for some fun new picks with their Masters slot ensured, coach Ian “immi” Harding isn’t looking to make any huge strategic changes before Iceland. “Maybe a couple of changes here and there, but nothing too drastic,” he said post-game. “We’re not worried about how the Europeans are tactical, we’re still going to run at them. It doesn’t matter, they’re not good.”
Back in the match, Sentinels changed the course of the series with their performance on map two, Haven. They surprised V1 on their own map pick, with 21+ kill performances from SicK, TenZ, and dapr. V1 would need to pull off the reverse sweep to find victory in the series down 2-0, heading into Icebox.
The two Iceland-bound teams were deadlocked on Icebox at halftime, 6-6. But Sentinels were pushed over the edge by a 31-kill showing by ShahZaM on Jett. With the victory, Sentinels take home another victory and take the lion’s share of the NA Challengers Finals prize pool.
Following their win, ShahZaM and company are already looking forward to international competition, especially Fnatic and Team Liquid. “Europe are probably the other strongest region outside of North America,” he said post-match. “I watch a lot of their games and I’m interested to see how the styles match up, because they like to run heavy post-plants and use Brimstone.”
Tyson “TenZ” Ngo is a retired CS:GO player who currently plays VALORANT for the Sentinels. See the gear TenZ used to compete at the highest level.
For both teams, their VCT Stage Two journey is not over as they head to Iceland in three weeks to represent NA at the first international VALORANT LAN. A total of 10 teams from across the world will meet in Reykjavík in the first official offline tournament for the VCT. Even just by qualifying for Masters Two, each team has earned a huge amount of VCT points towards qualifying for Champions at the end of the year.
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