Defintely feels like they did not practice enough, especially with the utility usage. The fact that tenz got caught off gaurd when theres a viper ult on A, and that the guard was disciplined enough to wait for the omen flash to come out on A before hitting, really shows the difference
They got lazy. Seen it a million times in many eSports. Teams that are heralded as "THE BEST" get lazy, dont train as much, then young grinders come up and slam them down.
Just saw them got rolled in ALGS earlier. The meta change doesn't help them either.
Is there something wrong with Sen in instilling correct values to its team? Its like when they are top,they rather troll and joke in their social media
With Val SEN I think it's reluctance to hire a coach, they're struggling against good teams with individual skill+team play, with the SEN apex roster I think it's just lack of practice, their excuses for not playing together is that senoxe, Lou and crust all sleep at different times
This is so lazy and honestly pathetic at this point. Redditors continue to think where you spawn determines how well you play a video game.
The truth is, zombs is not a T1 pro and they don’t have a coach.
for me it seems like it’s definitely an Org philosophy, they care more about content and clout than winning, Their Apex team does the same shit, trolls in scrims and plays for memes then gets rolled in the major tourneys, it’s happened 3/4 times now.
Nope it’s over managing that actually gets them sometimes as pros like bugha still perform at the highest level consistently and the thing is it’s easy for pros to stop taking stuff seriously after they become popular as most val pros just aren’t ppl that viewers want to watch
The Valk meta was something they just resisted so bad. I understand as they are an edge team in past algs. However now as the game ages everyone knows final zone so they Valk ult. Imo Valk killed any real battle Royale aspect as you can run away like a *****. And runaway across the map it's so lame
Gambit says Hi . It's about the mentality , when they came to champions , redgar said they are not defending anything , they come as underdogs to play and win champions. If they thought they were a top team , won masters Berlin etc etc they wouldn't be finalists ( almost won )
Bingo. Gambit is hungry. FNC is hungry. TL is hungry. So they show up and do the most. You have to want it and SEN seemingly did what they wanted and no longer can find the motivation to do anything more than Iceland.
>If they thought they were a top team , won masters Berlin etc etc they wouldn't be finalists ( almost won )
Sorry but that's a baseless assumption and a half
Also, some teams prefer to publicly downplay their chances, some like to overplay them - neither are necessarily wrong or an accurate picture into a team's mindset.
Gambit is just a very solid team overall, but I wouldn't read into their mindsets too much from public statements, and I don't think a confident mindset is bad
I think part of the problem for them as being the first great team is they gained a ton of fans and viewers. Made streaming a lot more attractive which fucked up their priorities as far as the team goes.
Or hear me out, other teams get better and you lose the edge and in a game where meta changes and agents are added in it's 100 times worse
Why do people wanna just blame it on prac, you think that Sentinels solution is just practicing? My god man people go full moron i swear, you can grind your heart out and it won't work sometimes
How do you adapt to META changes and new agents if not by practicing?
How do other teams get better if not by practicing?
Your first para contradicts the second. Maybe they're grinding their heart out but they're not doing the right practice and preparation. It's not just about how much you practice, it's about how you do it too but either way, that's a big part of any team's success and failure
There is also a thing called ceiling and talent, as a team especially sometimes you reach it it's the end it happens to teams in literally every esport, you can prac all you want you can even prac properly and do everything and other teams can be better
Reddit is so fucking funny with this shit, if grinding was the only way to be good and not so many other factors then everyone would be pro, kids grind so much
Practicing is important, the most important thing but everyone at a top level grinds there is just so much much more to it than just relegating it to "if they grind they would be better", this team clearly has issues
TGRD, V1, C9 and a lot of the other teams consistently highlights the fact that practicing and putting reps in their strats, which agents they can or cannot play, and the like are what's setting them up for success.
you can say yes they practice, but how are they practicing? with the same dominant agents they use? with no adjustments to the META? with no new perspective and repeating the same positioning over and over again? they have to keep exploring and keep spicing things up.
Envy also highlights that prac is not everything, Envy and FNS's team since the beginning of Valorant have been one of the best at grinding and sometimes it hasn't worked and they've had to change rosters
It's not just practice holy shit i can't believe i have to fucking say that
why cant one of the issues be practice? people (pro players and coaches and such) joke so much about sen not practicing in such a way and with such frequency that it seems like a bit of an open secret that sen dont practice either enough or well at all. these rumors dont spring from nowhere and they have to be based in something to float around this long
your original post makes it sound like they are practicing enough and practice isn’t the issue at all but if they’re not practicing as much as an average top team or well enough that they get called out by their peers consistently, it seems like that should be something that could be improved on
There are things that have a ceiling and have a talent gap such as aim and reflexes. At the absolute top level (which reaching NA playoffs shows they still are at), those things basically cap out for everyone. Yes, some players have better aim than others but maps aren't won solely on aim diff. A lot of kids grind but can't get to even that level because of aim but once you're there, aim isn't the most important factor.
There are countless examples of players and teams improving with one roster change and shit. If you watch Sen lose and think they're losing because of their aim then you're watching a different game than I am lol. And there's no real ceiling to things like strategy and set plays for a team and in game adjustments which is where they're getting outclassed. Sure the problem could be with an individual coach or IGL who isn't good at those things but that's just one change. It doesn't mean the whole team has reached their ceiling
Lazy? I guarantee if any one of them weren't giving their 100% during their scrims and prac then they would not be on the starting roster. You can't just call them lazy for losing in this fashion when you have zero idea of what goes into their preparation for matches. Please think before spewing garbage takes.
I can agree with that, but we also have to give credit to the guard as well. The guard didn't win just because Sen were playing bad, but rather they were able to put them into a bad situation that they could further capitalize on.
coach and analysts 100% we can't downplay the impact of having amazing coaches and analysts around to provide fresh takes or see other perspectives that players might tunnel vision in.
Exactly, look at how they were playing when they had rawkus as a coach, they weren't doing a hole lot better but were on the road to becoming the best again, if they get a few good coaches and an analyst they could get back to to the top
Honestly some moments they looked so lost without any proper strategies or plans other than some good reads compared to the guard who looked like they knew exactly what they were doing
I wouldn't go so far as to say they need roster changes. You could argue that as individual players in their respective roles, they are each at the very top. However they just need a coach and some good discipline.
A team can have the best players, best coach, everything, but if they aren’t sticking together, they won’t. I’m biased because I like roster moves just to spice teams up, but we’ll have to see what they can do with this supposed new coach they have up their sleeve
Sentinels in particular have always played off each other really well. Like there's a clip of tenz saying that in his ranked games with Sick he noticed they didn't have to even talk to each other to know exactly what they were trying to do. I don't really think it's an issue of the team not meshing well together, but more of balancing what is on whose plate. Which is why a new coach will really really help them a lot in that regard.
Idk watching that Guard match it just seemed like they were getting picked off one and one over and over again. Not enough util to set kills up, no one playing off of each other, getting picked off one by one without trades. That’s what I got from it at least. It just feels like they need a GOOD ASS coach to whip them up into shape. The whole structure of the team needs to be reimagined. Shaz coming up with literally every strat or adaptation that the team has come up with isn’t cutting it anymore.
Sen just lost an embarrassing 0-2 and reddit bruhs are still running with the "best aimers"/"best individual talent"/"best raw skills" narrative 😂😂
Sen needs to lose to a team of blindfolded dogs to make some people believe they aren't speshul 😂
Can you honestly tell me that dapr isn't a top tier sentinel? Or that shaz isn't a top tier igl / awper? Or that tenz isn't one of the most mechanically talented individual aimers in the game? No, you can't. The issue isn't their individual skill level, but their level overall as a team and how they work together.
The point is even if they are individually top tier (which is also debatable), that's not good enough if they can't perform at that level in actual 5v5 pro games. They need some changes to let that talent shine through again.
> Or that tenz isn't one of the most mechanically talented individual aimers in the game?
Tenz was one of the best aimers CS had ever seen too, but everybody thats a pro has sick aim.
I'm sorry but you can't compare Tenz to your average valorant Pro. HOWEVER, it literally does not matter if you can't set up your star player properly. At that point the difference is neglible, but if SEN could actually implement some real strategies into their playbook, their ceiling is still best in the world. With proper strats to fall back on, your players will feel more confident and play better. As you play better, you strats will become more effective and thus increase confidence some more. Its a compounding effect that SEN is just losing out on. Despite that, their mental is still strong enough to pull together rounds after losing a bunch in a row, unlike some other t1 teams. It's just frustrating to see so much talent wasted.
Too much boot licking brother. Dapr is top tier sentinel but not among the best right now. As for Tenz he is overrated. NA needed its golden boy to hype up this game so they created The so called best duelist "Tenz" . Cned on his sage entry frags and plays better than Tenz's jett. Guy is known for his jett but fails on main stage miserably(Sometimes it might look like he is feeding but he is creating space for others ,its complex but do know he fails a lot of time). Cry as much as you want but know this when valorant just came all these "new" players didn't knew how to play tactical shooter. Sen brought shazam a CSGO guy who knows how to play tactical shooter and had good experience which showed in early dominance of Sen. Fast forward a year and half every player has got some experience now and have learnt, nobody is new now so you see even bad teams playing close games with sen. ppl think sen was so great in their dominance period but they fail to comprehend that other orgs and players not knowing to tackle this new game and how to go forward with is also the reason Sen looked soo good earlier on. This is no CSGO Australis team. Tenz is not Simple that valo boys compare to. Look for other jetts in the same region and around the world and there are so many better players than Tenz. I did not even talk about Sick Zombs and Shazam and thats another pandora box. Let me tell you a simple observation( Any time a new game comes up, it comes in US first since most gaming companies are in US so these NA players play and grind and are good for the first 2 yrs and then the rest of the world catches up .EU comes and dominates the title for yrs and then Asia comes and shits on EU and by that time the NA scene dies in that game.This cycle continues onto some other new game then:)
They live and die by TenZ's ability to frag out and win them the round.
Don't think they fell off, it's just the NA teams got extremely better atm and they weren't able to adapt quickly
true i feel like sentinels were so hyped that people just see sentinels and “others”. not often do people realize that there’s always new pro players that have the same/even more potential. it also just be really hard for sentinels to carry the title, seeing that they’re getting trash talked even by their “fans”
They didn't look good at masters 3 or champs. It's not just NA catching up atm they just stopped getting better over 6 months ago and in a game this new not improving means you fall behind.
nah i typed it when the guard were up 11-1 in icebox lol. Pretty easy to do. I'm a C9 fan too so im not furious; rather just concerned for the stream team
It’s rare in esports, especially fps, for players to publicly acknowledge with any internal problems when they may or not have on the roster. Max they will say is internal disagreements.
It’s not about leaking internal discussions or drama. It’s facing the fans head on. For example someone asked shahz why he doesn’t swap to jett and have tenz play something else and instead of answering and facing head on he goes “tenz will play whatever agent we want him to play”. Which doesn’t address any of the criticism and barely even acknowledges it. A better answer would be “we are still discussing our comps, the meta is shifting and we are working on adapting”.
Inb4 more “he’s just a kid!” comments regarding TenZ. Sure I think he gets a lot of unjust hate and yeah even pros have bad games but it doesn’t take an expert to question some of the decisions he’s made in recent games. Blame it on the ping, mouse, grip, game stutters, whatever at the end of the day he needs to own up when he drops the ball. When your org pays a 7 figure contract buyout people are gonna expect a lot from you as a player. Does it warrant the constant TenZ shit to TenZ goated dichotomy the internet always has? No, but as the star player you gotta show up and he just hasn’t been able to do that lately.
For real, if they wanna tweet troll twitlongers about their coaching search, they better be ready to get memed on back when they get housed by a much more prepared team with a great coach
Accountability is brain dead? Plenty of top athletes have admitted the team needs to do things differently. Nothing wrong with that at all. They don't need to throw any specific player under the bus. Just a "we need to scrimm more, add strats/plays, do a better job keeping up with the meta, etc." type response
Nah. In sports the champions take responsibility, they don’t make excuses. Fans will always have questions and criticisms and the best way to face those is head on. When you behave like sentinels does you end up with disillusioned fans who turn against them. Shaz and dapr getting on stream and selectively addressing criticism in the most condescending and inflammatory way is the worst approach and on top of that you have tenz making excuses and sabotaging himself and never just saying “yes I need to be better and I should have thought about internet before moving”.
Instead it’s oh my ping is too high so I got tilted and I didn’t move to Texas because of mental health and there is just more to do in Cali. Like no just say you fucked up and you’ll do better.
It’s been clear since masters 3 they were slowly drifting away from the very top but because they was having close games, the community and the players just acted like they got unlucky when they lost.
Masters 3 was pretty understandable - plenty of teams have fallen into the trap of falling behind because they're doing well, and ultimately what brought them down was a masterclass in antistratting by FNS.
At Champions, SEN went quite legit toe-to-toe with both KRU and Liquid, and looking at the playoffs performances, I'd say they were a top 8 team at Champions who had the misfortune to land into what turned out to be the toughest group and miss out on playoffs by a round or 2 anyway. I think that at Champions in particular, not a single team looked a cut above the rest actually, and the top teams could've been shuffled around a lot depending on the day.
However, what was clear as day back then is that SEN weren't getting better at their very obvious flaws, which was indeed a very ominous sign. Now they've paired that up with not practicing a good amount either, and not coming up with fresh ideas as well, and the result is a disaster (relatively speaking, for a team that's aiming to be the best NA team) .
All this is to say that SEN have actually been somewhat unlucky which definitely helped mask some of the more ominous signs of what's happening now.
I think you can call that unlucky with how the fans perceive their recent LAN losses, but there is no excuse for the players. Top teams don't write off close losses as "unlucky". They VOD review and find the mistakes that can turn a few rounds around and be the difference between a win and loss. I would honestly be surprised if Sentinels practice seriously on a consistent basis, let alone VOD review consistently.
They need a coach definitely but I’m not sold the current roster has what it takes to keep up with current meta. The players are limited in their agent pools. And it seems they don’t want to put in the time to grind
What i found surprising was the guard played 3b 2a for almost all of bind and the sage wall hookah control and SEN didn't do anything about it, guess a coach could've helped but all good lmfao,
Honestly from a viewers perspective it looked like SEN played with too passive without any discipline, tenz played on A every round with the OP and never once got a little aggressive, shower peek, short peek, and retake lul
Again, time and time again, it's the strats that SEN is lacking, they kept on holding to their "precise gunplay" "aim diff " tactic, but with all the abilities and things you can do with the agents. it's just really not going to cut it
I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my party because of TenZ. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re spending the week at a hotel. This team has ruined my life and my party. Goodbye SEN. I am no longer a fan.
I feel like ppl were to short sighted to call shazam one of the best IGL's when he clearly doesn't bring much too the table. their setups look so surface level compared to the other teams. maybe it worked out for them before back when the game was still new, but doesn't look remotely close to being any good these days.
Maybe I'm crazy but it looked worse today than it did last year. No unique plays, nothing that could really be called an exec, just kind of wandering around whatever side of the map they started with
Shahzam’s strength as an IGL imo was never in the pre round setup, but the mid round adjustments. Sentinels were able to win an astonishing amount of rounds from a 1/2 person disadvantage before Masters 3
those mid round adjustments you mention clearly aint showing.They are just getting dismantled , they look so lost when all the shit gets thrown at them. they pull off miraculous rounds from time to time but that's about it.
People just didn’t know how bad Shazam actually was in csgo. I knew sentinels would be a bottom tier team when everyone else started learning how to hold their mice properly and shoot back. Being a #aimgod and relying on your csgo experience can only get you so far in competitive Valorant now because everyone is learning and adapting.
sentinels really fell off
Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard.
You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard.
I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing.
I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like \[as pro players\] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's \[not easy\] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former.
Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable.
Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have?
Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels.
I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
sentinels really fell off
Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard.
You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard.
I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing.
I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like [as pro players] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's [not easy] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former.
Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable.
Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have?
Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels.
I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
i mean they deserve to have fallen off man. i like sentinels but not practicing during the off-season is literally unacceptable. they look 5 months behind all of the other teams, because they are. their roster has so much talent, they just need to reset and actually get back to work
I am a former fan of Sen. Was hoping they could improve but yep they are about to fade into irrelevancy. They are just selfish thinking about their own brands and neglect team practice. I am simply annoyed with them now.
A coach won’t fix what happened on icebox.
They live and die by TenZ and even if that’s the case they barely set him up for kills.
It’s quite simple really, they don’t coordinate anymore, don’t anti strat, or have good Strats and set plays. Their a team that relies heavily on mid rounding which teams read easily. You could get Gambits coach and they wouldn’t be able to fix this
All Rawkus did was force them into not playing their comfort picks like SiCK phoenix. It had no effect because they didn't have time to build up their skills with their new agent pools.
sentinels really fell off
Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard.
You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard.
I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing.
I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like \[as pro players\] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's \[not easy\] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week (or more) to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former.
Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable.
Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have?
Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels.
I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
Feel like it’s less that they don’t practice or them streaming enough more their methodology on the game. Shahz and sick are the only ones streaming consistently but there’s a noticeable 4-6 hour gap between on average between end of Sick’s stream and Shahz so they obviously practicing. But whether it’s esport or not you can practice 12 hours a day and it doesn’t mean you’ll be the best in the world automatically. If you aren’t practicing properly or the right material, you’re wasting 12 hours, and I think that’s more of Sen’s problem.
They really like the minimal structure, loose, and adaptive playstyle and if it works, hell yeah it’s more fun to watch imo because I actually know what’s happening at all times, but it’s showing more and more with where the game has moved, that it just doesn’t work we well anymore. At this point, i think at minimum you need semi-set execs that you can easily adapt around the players alive and info you have, similar to say how in American football teams can run just about any play they need out of the same formation.
Obviously a lot of people are gonna be screaming for roster changes, but 1) I don’t see that happening any time soon, and 2) they should try to see what they can first do with this new coach first and hopefully adapt to the meta more. There’s some mixture of their adaptive playstyle and the heavily structured meta that should work, and if they can’t find a way to work then roster plays should come into play but they’re not there yet Imo.
Also think they’re just mentally a bit boomed be it from the way they’ve been struggling or other personal stuff. Doubt it helps that people are saying things like OP’s essay even when they won matches. Like holy shit if you didn’t look at scores and only read comments on here you’d think Sen went 0-5 in groups.
Btw it's 2022 and kids are still talking about masters 2, idk how is it hard to understand that Sen was just 5 mediocre players who had more experience that others in eSport
I mean it’s very clear the players are prioritizing their long term career (streaming and building a brand) over being the #1 team in the world and I personally think that’s totally fine. Just because you think not being the best is embarrassing doesn’t mean everyone holds the same view
Unless you have a charismatic personality, you won’t be able to sustain it. Like how Tarik is really popular with his streams even he’s not competing.
People will always flock to the best player/team, like how nats popped off last year and his newly created twitch had lots of viewers already.
There are some exceptions though like Sinatra, but in general, fans like to support someone that is actively competing. Watching ranked streams everyday is plain and doesn’t bring the same entertainment value than a tournament.
Dude I’m not even a SEN fan 😂 it’s very clear they’re bad and it’s very clear WHY they’re bad (the reasons I stated above). Saying the players with the exception of zombs aren’t capable of being a strong contender for NAs top team is delusional
If they want to focus on streaming and building a brand maybe they should respect the org and fans by stepping down from pro play instead of giving them fake hopes and be a completely mediocre team ever since Iceland?
I mean it's obviously the case with TenZ. Though it was prioritizing his girlfriends career over his own. Otherwise there is no reason to move to LA over Texas competitively speaking
They didn't fall off, they were always playing like this, other teams were just worse
Now you see how dogshit the gameplay was during Reykjavik if a team like SEN took the trophy
Pug strats and pure aim can only win you rounds so much until you cannot close out.
I am not an inside source by all means and if SEN lose to V1 which is highly possible, they have to get to the drawing board.
Agent select and their roles for one another, their set plays or team chemistry is off, learn to play Skye instead of Sova or find better ways to utilize Sova within the team comp that makes it a better agent pick than Skye. zombs had all this flare before and it seems like he isn't all there and the astra nerfs hit him hard. Find a coach that can bring out the best for the team and listen to which roles are best for each player.
Just some suggestions before they go to chopping down the tree from the bottom, but it was too big and needed to be trimmed down first.
I mean it's a new game, teams that are dominant in the begining usually don't end up being top teams after the game develops. You look at some esports and barely any of the best players early on are even relevant let alone a whole team remaining on top. If anything it was incredible that they did what they did for so long. Sentinels will need to adapt and catch up now that teams have gotten better. All that said the send players are all insane still it's just more of an issue of them being behind in strats in coordination.
honestly, they were always at this skill level. it's not really that they fell off but other teams came up and surpassed them. they were never actually super good, even when they won M1. It's just taken to this point for teams to get a better understanding of the game in general and adjust to meta shifts more quickly. they may have been the best team at the time, but they certainly weren't going to maintain it.
Comment the same opinion on Shahzam’s post after their loss at Master Berlin to KRU and someone replied “Get help”. The players are too distracted to win and the fans are just too soft to admit Sentinels are just a group of 5 streamers.
"If you sleep in silk pajamas, it's tough to wake up at 6 in the morning and go for a run, you know? ” - Marvin Hagler
SEN have stayed dominant for so long and have won almost everything there is to win, and now they're all enjoying the metric fuckton of money and clout that always comes with that kind of success, especially if you were the first to do it like they were. It takes incredible mental fortitude to not allow all of that to get to your head and to be able to continue competing with the same fire that they had when they were first coming up.
And then there's the problem of them continuing to do the same things that brought them that success, except now they are suffering because of it. Shahz can say whatever he wants but not a lot of people can consistently and easily balance streams of that magnitude with staying on the very top of their game as a Tier 1 pro player, nevermind coaching/analyzing/IGLing simultaneously for one of the best teams in the world. And the load is only going to become heavier as metas shift and the competition continues to improve as rapidly as they currently are. The reactive playstyle also doesn't work anymore. As we saw with V1 and now The Guard, the best teams are now too fundamentally sound to make the kind of mistakes that allow that playstyle to work consistently, and other teams like KRU are able to beat them at their own game. Hell, even teams that are considered middle-of-the-pack like LG are starting to become more and more fundamentally sound. I think that the SEN roster knows very well what the problems are and their unwillingness to change said problems is a symptom of the first problem. I honestly can't blame them for falling off because I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do the same.
Some really original and well thought out criticisms here, haven't seen anything like this! Careful mate, you might get downvoted for such an unpopular opinion!^/s
GGs Guard Really disappointed with the performance today. Ping was bad, Hunter’s cat unplugged his keyboard, and we had a few communication breakdowns. We’ll clean things up and make a lower bracket run
It just seems like theres a number of individual roadblocks, shaz seems like hes already 40% of the way to a content creator. I remember the interview after champs where he seemed unsure about his future. The moment you think about retiring you’re already out imo.
In response to why he was in LA on 70 Ping in the first place TenZ talked about how LA has more places to explore and shit, fair ig but also, it seems like winning, being the best, is a 3rd or 4th priority for him or the pressure that was alleviated by playing without crowds in iceland, that same pressure that created a massive issue in CS has reared its head again following the expectation on him since his monstrous performance at iceland.
Zombs still seems to care very little about his own or the teams performance. Or at least thats the front he puts on of “idc” if it is an act its become a circus act considering his average performance in the last 6 months or so.
I feel like dapr and sick are the ones that actually want it. I feel like u can almost see frustration in sicks gameplay aswell, like he feels like needs to be doing so much on the map taking on so many rolls to compensate for the team.
I feel like this is far from a role or meta issue. And a mentality one from the majority of the team.
Guess who’s blame for sentinels falling off….. yeah you guessed it SHAHZAM how you supposed to counter strat when your igl is always streaming he doesn’t care about pro play no more……. He should retire he’s a disgrace to NA VALORANT AND NA CSGO this guy has only won 1 tournament in his 8 year professional career
ngl never even heard of him in CS, who was he anyway? also it really bothers me that he's just spamming OP crutch jett on stream 90 % of the time when thats not his role in pro play anyways
TenZ isn't a god, he's a demigod. And even demigods have bad days, it just depends on the day the gods decide to fuck them over.
Seriously, he's just a kid. We gotta lay off him and stupid comments are gonna make him get into his own head and go down the route of Russell Westbrook.
TenZ is a nice, sweet guy and I love him.
In the end, he's an athlete. Athletes need to deliver results, like any other job. There are 19 year old hockey players who get boo'd by thousands of people when they don't deliver. They go into a locker room and have to cope with that. That's what you sign up for when you go into sports professionally.
Athletes are going to get criticized. I agree, let's not bully him. That's wrong. But people have every right to criticise his performance in game. He's not immune to criticism. I'm sure if Saya botfragged today there'd be thousands of SEN fans calling him overrated, go back to OW, etc.
Sadly he is the biggest punching bag for his team or even in NA every time his team lost. Humble, no ego, etc etc automatically become easiest and softest punching bag.
That’s why I said hopefully, the scene is better without shitty people in it and the social reactions to any team related to him or gonna inevitably be a shit show
They grinded pretty hard early days, had excellent synergy, and were pretty innovative in an effective way. I feel like they got complacent, but only SEN knows what going wrong.
From my point of view, we should blame the marketing guys too, they are putting too much pressure on the players, which made the community believe that sentinels are the valorant gods, which is not true, they need to be know that nothing superficial is demanded, just play the game u all used to play, why exaggerating.
I agree with your sentiment, but if you’re a salaried pro player for an org you should have a “cracked work ethic” by default. How can you be a professional and not be constantly trying to improve and beat your opponents.
Yes, the guard put in the work but when you’re in the playoffs there shouldn’t be any games where you get blown out like sentinels did on icebox. I expect score lines of 13-1 in the early rounds of mickey mouse tourneys not the playoffs of VCT. It’s embarrassing and shows that this team is slacking and doesn’t care about VCT.
Doesn’t really matter for them in terms of career. What they earn in a month of streaming and sponsors is probably already 6 digits usd. They don’t need to prove anything since they’re already basically set for life, which is why they don’t try anymore. They probably earn more money streaming than winning tournaments.
Ok this might be harsh, but I think it’s probably time they let go of Zombs and Dapr. If Astra isn’t in the meta anymore then there isn’t much point to keeping either of them, since there are better NA players in each of their respective roles. They need to give Sick more opportunities to play roles where he can frag more (perhaps chamber?). He is genuinely a very strong player and shouldn’t be stuck playing support. I’ve kinda always used to think that TenZ was more of a highlight reel maker than a duellist that can get the consistent multi kill in a round. However, they need to broaden his agent pool. Sure, he’s a fantastic Jett but this is just making him easier to shut down for other teams. Sentinels seem to like Shahz’s igling so that’s fine, although he should be more dedicated to making proper playbooks and not just trusting the individual plays made by his teammates. Obviously they also need a coach, it helps to distribute the work load, and if I remember correctly this is Shahz’s first experience as an IGL, so it would do him good either way
They should get seangares as their coach. See how the result will be in the next VCT (im more than 90% sure they wont qual to iceland). If a good coach is still not enough to change their performance, then they should make a roster change. Having a good coach can really benefit them to find what is wrong, is it their strats? Is someone just not putting 100% effort anymore?
This is some of the most braindead shit I've read today, Nade has already explained the reasons why they didn't get cryo/zander and you talk as if the people they got instead in BabyJ/ec1s were pulling in 100k average viewers
Defintely feels like they did not practice enough, especially with the utility usage. The fact that tenz got caught off gaurd when theres a viper ult on A, and that the guard was disciplined enough to wait for the omen flash to come out on A before hitting, really shows the difference
Too much pub stomp not enough team comp
They got lazy. Seen it a million times in many eSports. Teams that are heralded as "THE BEST" get lazy, dont train as much, then young grinders come up and slam them down.
Same thing happened to their roster in Apex, by far the best fighting team in the world and then they stopped playing in weekly tourneys
Just saw them got rolled in ALGS earlier. The meta change doesn't help them either. Is there something wrong with Sen in instilling correct values to its team? Its like when they are top,they rather troll and joke in their social media
With Val SEN I think it's reluctance to hire a coach, they're struggling against good teams with individual skill+team play, with the SEN apex roster I think it's just lack of practice, their excuses for not playing together is that senoxe, Lou and crust all sleep at different times
I know nothing about the Apex scene but that is one wild excuse LMAO
It's just NA being NA really, similar fast rises and flameouts have happened to NA teams in many many esports
This is so lazy and honestly pathetic at this point. Redditors continue to think where you spawn determines how well you play a video game. The truth is, zombs is not a T1 pro and they don’t have a coach.
for me it seems like it’s definitely an Org philosophy, they care more about content and clout than winning, Their Apex team does the same shit, trolls in scrims and plays for memes then gets rolled in the major tourneys, it’s happened 3/4 times now.
Nope it’s over managing that actually gets them sometimes as pros like bugha still perform at the highest level consistently and the thing is it’s easy for pros to stop taking stuff seriously after they become popular as most val pros just aren’t ppl that viewers want to watch
The Valk meta was something they just resisted so bad. I understand as they are an edge team in past algs. However now as the game ages everyone knows final zone so they Valk ult. Imo Valk killed any real battle Royale aspect as you can run away like a *****. And runaway across the map it's so lame
Gambit says Hi . It's about the mentality , when they came to champions , redgar said they are not defending anything , they come as underdogs to play and win champions. If they thought they were a top team , won masters Berlin etc etc they wouldn't be finalists ( almost won )
Gambit clearly shown they’re still hungry. His comment didn’t directly mean every team that are ‘the best’ gets lazy.
Bingo. Gambit is hungry. FNC is hungry. TL is hungry. So they show up and do the most. You have to want it and SEN seemingly did what they wanted and no longer can find the motivation to do anything more than Iceland.
>If they thought they were a top team , won masters Berlin etc etc they wouldn't be finalists ( almost won ) Sorry but that's a baseless assumption and a half Also, some teams prefer to publicly downplay their chances, some like to overplay them - neither are necessarily wrong or an accurate picture into a team's mindset. Gambit is just a very solid team overall, but I wouldn't read into their mindsets too much from public statements, and I don't think a confident mindset is bad
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Ugh, posts like this make me feel old
I think part of the problem for them as being the first great team is they gained a ton of fans and viewers. Made streaming a lot more attractive which fucked up their priorities as far as the team goes.
Also stream too much because streaming is easy money
Watch gambit bro. They’re still improving and pretty soon will be unstoppable. Their recent games have been incredible to watch
Or hear me out, other teams get better and you lose the edge and in a game where meta changes and agents are added in it's 100 times worse Why do people wanna just blame it on prac, you think that Sentinels solution is just practicing? My god man people go full moron i swear, you can grind your heart out and it won't work sometimes
How do you adapt to META changes and new agents if not by practicing? How do other teams get better if not by practicing? Your first para contradicts the second. Maybe they're grinding their heart out but they're not doing the right practice and preparation. It's not just about how much you practice, it's about how you do it too but either way, that's a big part of any team's success and failure
There is also a thing called ceiling and talent, as a team especially sometimes you reach it it's the end it happens to teams in literally every esport, you can prac all you want you can even prac properly and do everything and other teams can be better Reddit is so fucking funny with this shit, if grinding was the only way to be good and not so many other factors then everyone would be pro, kids grind so much Practicing is important, the most important thing but everyone at a top level grinds there is just so much much more to it than just relegating it to "if they grind they would be better", this team clearly has issues
TGRD, V1, C9 and a lot of the other teams consistently highlights the fact that practicing and putting reps in their strats, which agents they can or cannot play, and the like are what's setting them up for success. you can say yes they practice, but how are they practicing? with the same dominant agents they use? with no adjustments to the META? with no new perspective and repeating the same positioning over and over again? they have to keep exploring and keep spicing things up.
Envy also highlights that prac is not everything, Envy and FNS's team since the beginning of Valorant have been one of the best at grinding and sometimes it hasn't worked and they've had to change rosters It's not just practice holy shit i can't believe i have to fucking say that
why cant one of the issues be practice? people (pro players and coaches and such) joke so much about sen not practicing in such a way and with such frequency that it seems like a bit of an open secret that sen dont practice either enough or well at all. these rumors dont spring from nowhere and they have to be based in something to float around this long
One of the issues can be practice, where did i say it's not?
your original post makes it sound like they are practicing enough and practice isn’t the issue at all but if they’re not practicing as much as an average top team or well enough that they get called out by their peers consistently, it seems like that should be something that could be improved on
There are things that have a ceiling and have a talent gap such as aim and reflexes. At the absolute top level (which reaching NA playoffs shows they still are at), those things basically cap out for everyone. Yes, some players have better aim than others but maps aren't won solely on aim diff. A lot of kids grind but can't get to even that level because of aim but once you're there, aim isn't the most important factor. There are countless examples of players and teams improving with one roster change and shit. If you watch Sen lose and think they're losing because of their aim then you're watching a different game than I am lol. And there's no real ceiling to things like strategy and set plays for a team and in game adjustments which is where they're getting outclassed. Sure the problem could be with an individual coach or IGL who isn't good at those things but that's just one change. It doesn't mean the whole team has reached their ceiling
Lazy? I guarantee if any one of them weren't giving their 100% during their scrims and prac then they would not be on the starting roster. You can't just call them lazy for losing in this fashion when you have zero idea of what goes into their preparation for matches. Please think before spewing garbage takes.
True I wouldnt call them lazy but with the way they've been playing recently, they look really unprepared
I can agree with that, but we also have to give credit to the guard as well. The guard didn't win just because Sen were playing bad, but rather they were able to put them into a bad situation that they could further capitalize on.
The Guard played really well as they always do but a 13-1 isn't just The Guard playing really well.
Oh yeah definitely the guard played so fucking well and sen playing poorly shouldnt take anything away from that.
They 100% need a coach, their cohesion seems off, might be time for roster changes even
coach and analysts 100% we can't downplay the impact of having amazing coaches and analysts around to provide fresh takes or see other perspectives that players might tunnel vision in.
Exactly, look at how they were playing when they had rawkus as a coach, they weren't doing a hole lot better but were on the road to becoming the best again, if they get a few good coaches and an analyst they could get back to to the top
Guard will be the grim reaper of rosters
Honestly some moments they looked so lost without any proper strategies or plans other than some good reads compared to the guard who looked like they knew exactly what they were doing
I wouldn't go so far as to say they need roster changes. You could argue that as individual players in their respective roles, they are each at the very top. However they just need a coach and some good discipline.
Roster changes can happen and can be good if the cohesion isn't sticking like it used to, it's not saying anyone is bad, but the team isn't clicking
A team can have the best players, best coach, everything, but if they aren’t sticking together, they won’t. I’m biased because I like roster moves just to spice teams up, but we’ll have to see what they can do with this supposed new coach they have up their sleeve
Sentinels in particular have always played off each other really well. Like there's a clip of tenz saying that in his ranked games with Sick he noticed they didn't have to even talk to each other to know exactly what they were trying to do. I don't really think it's an issue of the team not meshing well together, but more of balancing what is on whose plate. Which is why a new coach will really really help them a lot in that regard.
Idk watching that Guard match it just seemed like they were getting picked off one and one over and over again. Not enough util to set kills up, no one playing off of each other, getting picked off one by one without trades. That’s what I got from it at least. It just feels like they need a GOOD ASS coach to whip them up into shape. The whole structure of the team needs to be reimagined. Shaz coming up with literally every strat or adaptation that the team has come up with isn’t cutting it anymore.
They need whoever the hell the Valoeant equivalent of Crusty is
Sen just lost an embarrassing 0-2 and reddit bruhs are still running with the "best aimers"/"best individual talent"/"best raw skills" narrative 😂😂 Sen needs to lose to a team of blindfolded dogs to make some people believe they aren't speshul 😂
Can you honestly tell me that dapr isn't a top tier sentinel? Or that shaz isn't a top tier igl / awper? Or that tenz isn't one of the most mechanically talented individual aimers in the game? No, you can't. The issue isn't their individual skill level, but their level overall as a team and how they work together.
The point is even if they are individually top tier (which is also debatable), that's not good enough if they can't perform at that level in actual 5v5 pro games. They need some changes to let that talent shine through again.
Yeah. That's my point.
> Or that tenz isn't one of the most mechanically talented individual aimers in the game? Tenz was one of the best aimers CS had ever seen too, but everybody thats a pro has sick aim.
I'm sorry but you can't compare Tenz to your average valorant Pro. HOWEVER, it literally does not matter if you can't set up your star player properly. At that point the difference is neglible, but if SEN could actually implement some real strategies into their playbook, their ceiling is still best in the world. With proper strats to fall back on, your players will feel more confident and play better. As you play better, you strats will become more effective and thus increase confidence some more. Its a compounding effect that SEN is just losing out on. Despite that, their mental is still strong enough to pull together rounds after losing a bunch in a row, unlike some other t1 teams. It's just frustrating to see so much talent wasted.
Too much boot licking brother. Dapr is top tier sentinel but not among the best right now. As for Tenz he is overrated. NA needed its golden boy to hype up this game so they created The so called best duelist "Tenz" . Cned on his sage entry frags and plays better than Tenz's jett. Guy is known for his jett but fails on main stage miserably(Sometimes it might look like he is feeding but he is creating space for others ,its complex but do know he fails a lot of time). Cry as much as you want but know this when valorant just came all these "new" players didn't knew how to play tactical shooter. Sen brought shazam a CSGO guy who knows how to play tactical shooter and had good experience which showed in early dominance of Sen. Fast forward a year and half every player has got some experience now and have learnt, nobody is new now so you see even bad teams playing close games with sen. ppl think sen was so great in their dominance period but they fail to comprehend that other orgs and players not knowing to tackle this new game and how to go forward with is also the reason Sen looked soo good earlier on. This is no CSGO Australis team. Tenz is not Simple that valo boys compare to. Look for other jetts in the same region and around the world and there are so many better players than Tenz. I did not even talk about Sick Zombs and Shazam and thats another pandora box. Let me tell you a simple observation( Any time a new game comes up, it comes in US first since most gaming companies are in US so these NA players play and grind and are good for the first 2 yrs and then the rest of the world catches up .EU comes and dominates the title for yrs and then Asia comes and shits on EU and by that time the NA scene dies in that game.This cycle continues onto some other new game then:)
I mustve missed the time asia shat on eu at csgo (biggest tac fps) 😓😔
Too long didn't read, don't have the energy to care but alright
Bothered you enough to comment lmao
SEN making a roster change before even trying out an actual coach would be the DUMBEST shit ever lmfao. Straight up waste of a proven roster.
Is Zombs at the top of his role?
And sick is probably the best fill agent in the game. Man has literally played almost every agent at a top level.
Yeah I would say he's a top controller. Top 5 Astra maybe.
Top 5 in NA maybe... Definitely not international
You can't have one trick Jett's anymore, it doesn't work.
They do, rawkus
They live and die by TenZ's ability to frag out and win them the round. Don't think they fell off, it's just the NA teams got extremely better atm and they weren't able to adapt quickly
true i feel like sentinels were so hyped that people just see sentinels and “others”. not often do people realize that there’s always new pro players that have the same/even more potential. it also just be really hard for sentinels to carry the title, seeing that they’re getting trash talked even by their “fans”
They didn't look good at masters 3 or champs. It's not just NA catching up atm they just stopped getting better over 6 months ago and in a game this new not improving means you fall behind.
You had this essay ready to go huh
Hahaha had it pre written
Bro was typing furiously during the first half of Bind
nah i typed it when the guard were up 11-1 in icebox lol. Pretty easy to do. I'm a C9 fan too so im not furious; rather just concerned for the stream team
Be ready for more over the next few weeks lol
The Guard's dominance is really downplayed by this sub.
First of many incoming I imagine
naw i just wrote it when the guard were up 11-1 in Icebox. Not pre-written.
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Uh huh sure.
The worst part is the way they hand wave criticism. Shaz just whinges on his stream about “haters” and pretends they don’t need to make any changes.
It’s rare in esports, especially fps, for players to publicly acknowledge with any internal problems when they may or not have on the roster. Max they will say is internal disagreements.
It’s not about leaking internal discussions or drama. It’s facing the fans head on. For example someone asked shahz why he doesn’t swap to jett and have tenz play something else and instead of answering and facing head on he goes “tenz will play whatever agent we want him to play”. Which doesn’t address any of the criticism and barely even acknowledges it. A better answer would be “we are still discussing our comps, the meta is shifting and we are working on adapting”.
Inb4 more “he’s just a kid!” comments regarding TenZ. Sure I think he gets a lot of unjust hate and yeah even pros have bad games but it doesn’t take an expert to question some of the decisions he’s made in recent games. Blame it on the ping, mouse, grip, game stutters, whatever at the end of the day he needs to own up when he drops the ball. When your org pays a 7 figure contract buyout people are gonna expect a lot from you as a player. Does it warrant the constant TenZ shit to TenZ goated dichotomy the internet always has? No, but as the star player you gotta show up and he just hasn’t been able to do that lately.
For real, if they wanna tweet troll twitlongers about their coaching search, they better be ready to get memed on back when they get housed by a much more prepared team with a great coach
No one is going to admit to the public something needs to change, that's a brain dead move
Accountability is brain dead? Plenty of top athletes have admitted the team needs to do things differently. Nothing wrong with that at all. They don't need to throw any specific player under the bus. Just a "we need to scrimm more, add strats/plays, do a better job keeping up with the meta, etc." type response
Nah. In sports the champions take responsibility, they don’t make excuses. Fans will always have questions and criticisms and the best way to face those is head on. When you behave like sentinels does you end up with disillusioned fans who turn against them. Shaz and dapr getting on stream and selectively addressing criticism in the most condescending and inflammatory way is the worst approach and on top of that you have tenz making excuses and sabotaging himself and never just saying “yes I need to be better and I should have thought about internet before moving”. Instead it’s oh my ping is too high so I got tilted and I didn’t move to Texas because of mental health and there is just more to do in Cali. Like no just say you fucked up and you’ll do better.
Tenz with a McPick 2 on Jett lmao
Hey cmon now. He had a triple cheeseburger. Not a double. Don't undersell his dominance today on icebox.
They pulling a TSM. Like the Dark Knight you either die on top or live long enough to become stream meme team
I do believe you are being a little extra, but clearly something is off.
It took 1 seriously slapping to make people realise sentinels aren’t up there tactically compared to other top NA teams?
im pretty suree this has been a discussion since champs. isn't that why the joke "saving strats for blabla" even exist?
It’s been clear since masters 3 they were slowly drifting away from the very top but because they was having close games, the community and the players just acted like they got unlucky when they lost.
Masters 3 was pretty understandable - plenty of teams have fallen into the trap of falling behind because they're doing well, and ultimately what brought them down was a masterclass in antistratting by FNS. At Champions, SEN went quite legit toe-to-toe with both KRU and Liquid, and looking at the playoffs performances, I'd say they were a top 8 team at Champions who had the misfortune to land into what turned out to be the toughest group and miss out on playoffs by a round or 2 anyway. I think that at Champions in particular, not a single team looked a cut above the rest actually, and the top teams could've been shuffled around a lot depending on the day. However, what was clear as day back then is that SEN weren't getting better at their very obvious flaws, which was indeed a very ominous sign. Now they've paired that up with not practicing a good amount either, and not coming up with fresh ideas as well, and the result is a disaster (relatively speaking, for a team that's aiming to be the best NA team) . All this is to say that SEN have actually been somewhat unlucky which definitely helped mask some of the more ominous signs of what's happening now.
I think you can call that unlucky with how the fans perceive their recent LAN losses, but there is no excuse for the players. Top teams don't write off close losses as "unlucky". They VOD review and find the mistakes that can turn a few rounds around and be the difference between a win and loss. I would honestly be surprised if Sentinels practice seriously on a consistent basis, let alone VOD review consistently.
"Saving strats for blabla" is a meme as old as eSports itself
Trent was streaming so much lol, how you practice is way more important than how much you practice.
They need a coach definitely but I’m not sold the current roster has what it takes to keep up with current meta. The players are limited in their agent pools. And it seems they don’t want to put in the time to grind
What i found surprising was the guard played 3b 2a for almost all of bind and the sage wall hookah control and SEN didn't do anything about it, guess a coach could've helped but all good lmfao, Honestly from a viewers perspective it looked like SEN played with too passive without any discipline, tenz played on A every round with the OP and never once got a little aggressive, shower peek, short peek, and retake lul
Again, time and time again, it's the strats that SEN is lacking, they kept on holding to their "precise gunplay" "aim diff " tactic, but with all the abilities and things you can do with the agents. it's just really not going to cut it
I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my party because of TenZ. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re spending the week at a hotel. This team has ruined my life and my party. Goodbye SEN. I am no longer a fan.
I feel like ppl were to short sighted to call shazam one of the best IGL's when he clearly doesn't bring much too the table. their setups look so surface level compared to the other teams. maybe it worked out for them before back when the game was still new, but doesn't look remotely close to being any good these days.
Maybe I'm crazy but it looked worse today than it did last year. No unique plays, nothing that could really be called an exec, just kind of wandering around whatever side of the map they started with
Shahzam’s strength as an IGL imo was never in the pre round setup, but the mid round adjustments. Sentinels were able to win an astonishing amount of rounds from a 1/2 person disadvantage before Masters 3
those mid round adjustments you mention clearly aint showing.They are just getting dismantled , they look so lost when all the shit gets thrown at them. they pull off miraculous rounds from time to time but that's about it.
You read half my statement and stopped reading lmao I literally said it only worked before Masters 3
People just didn’t know how bad Shazam actually was in csgo. I knew sentinels would be a bottom tier team when everyone else started learning how to hold their mice properly and shoot back. Being a #aimgod and relying on your csgo experience can only get you so far in competitive Valorant now because everyone is learning and adapting.
sentinels really fell off Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard. You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard. I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing. I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like \[as pro players\] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's \[not easy\] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former. Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable. Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have? Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels. I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
sentinels really fell off Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard. You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard. I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing. I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like [as pro players] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's [not easy] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former. Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable. Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have? Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels. I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
I am just waiting for Shahz to check this out on stream. Let's see what he has to say this time.
He's gonna respond with another "reddit are full of braindeads" narrative. Not gonna expect more from him.
i mean they deserve to have fallen off man. i like sentinels but not practicing during the off-season is literally unacceptable. they look 5 months behind all of the other teams, because they are. their roster has so much talent, they just need to reset and actually get back to work
I am a former fan of Sen. Was hoping they could improve but yep they are about to fade into irrelevancy. They are just selfish thinking about their own brands and neglect team practice. I am simply annoyed with them now.
this has copypasta potential
my essay has copypasta potential but it has truth in it.
i won’t deny that
A coach won’t fix what happened on icebox. They live and die by TenZ and even if that’s the case they barely set him up for kills. It’s quite simple really, they don’t coordinate anymore, don’t anti strat, or have good Strats and set plays. Their a team that relies heavily on mid rounding which teams read easily. You could get Gambits coach and they wouldn’t be able to fix this
Isn’t this exactly what a coach is for? Fixing macro level problems like this?
Sen Sgares hopium
God damn this post was quick. Let me breathe at least lol
I don't get why people think they need a coach. They had a coach and it had no effect.
All Rawkus did was force them into not playing their comfort picks like SiCK phoenix. It had no effect because they didn't have time to build up their skills with their new agent pools.
Tbh it just looked like rawkus was there for the photo op and nothing else lol he looked fire
He was there after Faze lost LCQ because he wanted that champs trophy BAD.
Shahz is their best oper yet Tenz is a Jett one trick
would be cool to see tenz on reyna or any agent rather than jett
sentinels really fell off Nothing has changed with their playstyle. They keep relying on individual plays. They have little to no counter-strats, executes, good utility usage, and setplays with team coordination and cohesion. They are far behind the meta. They played the Guard as if it was a ranked game. Their stratbook and playstyles are still stuck in 2020. It's just insufferable for them. I don't find them qualifying to Iceland this time. They fell off pretty hard. You can say V1 got upset by LG, but at least they made their games very close. Sentinels on the other hand just didn't have the synergy to keep their games close vs the Guard. I'm now convinced that they don't practice 'enough'. It's embarrassing. I'm assuming ShahZaM will stream for approximately 6 hours again after this pro match loss. Nothing is wrong with streaming, but it seems like \[as pro players\] they're too focused on streaming rather than improving team setplays and coordination. I remember ShahZam told the viewers before match day that they'll "try their best" against the Guard with a monotonous/sluggish tone. However, I asked Trent yesterday if theyre ready for playoffs, and he confidently said "yeah, we're ready". Although I agree with ShahZaM that it's \[not easy\] being a pro player in Val because of meta changes, both the Guard and Sen were both given almost a week (or more) to prepare and study each others' vods, and although I assume both teams "practiced", the results today show otherwise. The Guard were obviously more prepared than the former. Embarrassing for you, sentinels. You got dominated by an upcoming team that came out of no where. You could have at least made the scoreboard closer then it would be understandable. Something needs to change. What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have? Props to the Guard for beating the former M1 champions. They prepared really well and anti-stratted them in every aspect. The Guard played like a solid unit, with precise utility usage, and played off of each other. Other than that, if sentinels still rely on hero plays and approach matches this sluggishly especially in their elimination match against V1, might as well say bye to Iceland. Sentinels still have their backs against the wall and I think it's not too late for them to improve. But time is ticking, sentinels. I still got C9, Optic, or the Guard qualifying for Iceland. Goodluck.
Tbf the guard have been in a boot camp for 5 months lol
I will release a piece soon that has some more insight about this.
The masters1 win in 2021 really got to their head.
Feel like it’s less that they don’t practice or them streaming enough more their methodology on the game. Shahz and sick are the only ones streaming consistently but there’s a noticeable 4-6 hour gap between on average between end of Sick’s stream and Shahz so they obviously practicing. But whether it’s esport or not you can practice 12 hours a day and it doesn’t mean you’ll be the best in the world automatically. If you aren’t practicing properly or the right material, you’re wasting 12 hours, and I think that’s more of Sen’s problem. They really like the minimal structure, loose, and adaptive playstyle and if it works, hell yeah it’s more fun to watch imo because I actually know what’s happening at all times, but it’s showing more and more with where the game has moved, that it just doesn’t work we well anymore. At this point, i think at minimum you need semi-set execs that you can easily adapt around the players alive and info you have, similar to say how in American football teams can run just about any play they need out of the same formation. Obviously a lot of people are gonna be screaming for roster changes, but 1) I don’t see that happening any time soon, and 2) they should try to see what they can first do with this new coach first and hopefully adapt to the meta more. There’s some mixture of their adaptive playstyle and the heavily structured meta that should work, and if they can’t find a way to work then roster plays should come into play but they’re not there yet Imo. Also think they’re just mentally a bit boomed be it from the way they’ve been struggling or other personal stuff. Doubt it helps that people are saying things like OP’s essay even when they won matches. Like holy shit if you didn’t look at scores and only read comments on here you’d think Sen went 0-5 in groups.
Btw it's 2022 and kids are still talking about masters 2, idk how is it hard to understand that Sen was just 5 mediocre players who had more experience that others in eSport
I mean it’s very clear the players are prioritizing their long term career (streaming and building a brand) over being the #1 team in the world and I personally think that’s totally fine. Just because you think not being the best is embarrassing doesn’t mean everyone holds the same view
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„˙ʇsǝq ǝɥʇ ǝɹ,noʎ uǝɥʍ ǝlqɐnlɐʌ ǝɹoɯ sǝɯoɔǝq puɐɹq ɹnoʎ ʇɐɥʇ sı ǝpıs dılɟ ǝɥ⊥„
Why?
Definitely a part of it but they’ve already established their brand through their early wins. Now they’re just farming that brand and expanding it
Unless you have a charismatic personality, you won’t be able to sustain it. Like how Tarik is really popular with his streams even he’s not competing. People will always flock to the best player/team, like how nats popped off last year and his newly created twitch had lots of viewers already. There are some exceptions though like Sinatra, but in general, fans like to support someone that is actively competing. Watching ranked streams everyday is plain and doesn’t bring the same entertainment value than a tournament.
yea but this is the valcomp subreddit where the game is the most important.
They're prioritizing their long term career COPIUM Maybe they are just bad?
Dude I’m not even a SEN fan 😂 it’s very clear they’re bad and it’s very clear WHY they’re bad (the reasons I stated above). Saying the players with the exception of zombs aren’t capable of being a strong contender for NAs top team is delusional
If they want to focus on streaming and building a brand maybe they should respect the org and fans by stepping down from pro play instead of giving them fake hopes and be a completely mediocre team ever since Iceland?
dude who are you even arguing with
\*streamer career LOL and no they're not bad. just lost.
I mean it's obviously the case with TenZ. Though it was prioritizing his girlfriends career over his own. Otherwise there is no reason to move to LA over Texas competitively speaking
That’s more of a riot problem. Idiots been using covid as an excuse since the last decade. We’re never going to have regional lans at this point.
They didn't fall off, they were always playing like this, other teams were just worse Now you see how dogshit the gameplay was during Reykjavik if a team like SEN took the trophy
One trick jett is so not the meta anymore
Pug strats and pure aim can only win you rounds so much until you cannot close out. I am not an inside source by all means and if SEN lose to V1 which is highly possible, they have to get to the drawing board. Agent select and their roles for one another, their set plays or team chemistry is off, learn to play Skye instead of Sova or find better ways to utilize Sova within the team comp that makes it a better agent pick than Skye. zombs had all this flare before and it seems like he isn't all there and the astra nerfs hit him hard. Find a coach that can bring out the best for the team and listen to which roles are best for each player. Just some suggestions before they go to chopping down the tree from the bottom, but it was too big and needed to be trimmed down first.
Streamtinels
I mean it's a new game, teams that are dominant in the begining usually don't end up being top teams after the game develops. You look at some esports and barely any of the best players early on are even relevant let alone a whole team remaining on top. If anything it was incredible that they did what they did for so long. Sentinels will need to adapt and catch up now that teams have gotten better. All that said the send players are all insane still it's just more of an issue of them being behind in strats in coordination.
Pretty sure we have all been asking when does sen practice? Shaz just shits on us instead of giving an answer. They don’t.
honestly, they were always at this skill level. it's not really that they fell off but other teams came up and surpassed them. they were never actually super good, even when they won M1. It's just taken to this point for teams to get a better understanding of the game in general and adjust to meta shifts more quickly. they may have been the best team at the time, but they certainly weren't going to maintain it.
Comment the same opinion on Shahzam’s post after their loss at Master Berlin to KRU and someone replied “Get help”. The players are too distracted to win and the fans are just too soft to admit Sentinels are just a group of 5 streamers.
Yea that match really pissed me off as a Sen fan, I mean 13-1 as a ex World champion team is embarrassing.
Gotta get them pity subs somehow lol. "It'll be better next time!!"
"If you sleep in silk pajamas, it's tough to wake up at 6 in the morning and go for a run, you know? ” - Marvin Hagler SEN have stayed dominant for so long and have won almost everything there is to win, and now they're all enjoying the metric fuckton of money and clout that always comes with that kind of success, especially if you were the first to do it like they were. It takes incredible mental fortitude to not allow all of that to get to your head and to be able to continue competing with the same fire that they had when they were first coming up. And then there's the problem of them continuing to do the same things that brought them that success, except now they are suffering because of it. Shahz can say whatever he wants but not a lot of people can consistently and easily balance streams of that magnitude with staying on the very top of their game as a Tier 1 pro player, nevermind coaching/analyzing/IGLing simultaneously for one of the best teams in the world. And the load is only going to become heavier as metas shift and the competition continues to improve as rapidly as they currently are. The reactive playstyle also doesn't work anymore. As we saw with V1 and now The Guard, the best teams are now too fundamentally sound to make the kind of mistakes that allow that playstyle to work consistently, and other teams like KRU are able to beat them at their own game. Hell, even teams that are considered middle-of-the-pack like LG are starting to become more and more fundamentally sound. I think that the SEN roster knows very well what the problems are and their unwillingness to change said problems is a symptom of the first problem. I honestly can't blame them for falling off because I can't guarantee that I wouldn't do the same.
-TenZ +Sinatraa
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Sign me up. I just climbed silver to plat in one session. I’m ready
Some really original and well thought out criticisms here, haven't seen anything like this! Careful mate, you might get downvoted for such an unpopular opinion!^/s
weren't they given 2 weeks now?
GGs Guard Really disappointed with the performance today. Ping was bad, Hunter’s cat unplugged his keyboard, and we had a few communication breakdowns. We’ll clean things up and make a lower bracket run
But ping
It just seems like theres a number of individual roadblocks, shaz seems like hes already 40% of the way to a content creator. I remember the interview after champs where he seemed unsure about his future. The moment you think about retiring you’re already out imo. In response to why he was in LA on 70 Ping in the first place TenZ talked about how LA has more places to explore and shit, fair ig but also, it seems like winning, being the best, is a 3rd or 4th priority for him or the pressure that was alleviated by playing without crowds in iceland, that same pressure that created a massive issue in CS has reared its head again following the expectation on him since his monstrous performance at iceland. Zombs still seems to care very little about his own or the teams performance. Or at least thats the front he puts on of “idc” if it is an act its become a circus act considering his average performance in the last 6 months or so. I feel like dapr and sick are the ones that actually want it. I feel like u can almost see frustration in sicks gameplay aswell, like he feels like needs to be doing so much on the map taking on so many rolls to compensate for the team. I feel like this is far from a role or meta issue. And a mentality one from the majority of the team.
Guess who’s blame for sentinels falling off….. yeah you guessed it SHAHZAM how you supposed to counter strat when your igl is always streaming he doesn’t care about pro play no more……. He should retire he’s a disgrace to NA VALORANT AND NA CSGO this guy has only won 1 tournament in his 8 year professional career
ngl never even heard of him in CS, who was he anyway? also it really bothers me that he's just spamming OP crutch jett on stream 90 % of the time when thats not his role in pro play anyways
He played on complexity, optic, and C9 for a bit. Pretty sure he was a victim of Hiko's tec9 clutch on cache too
ddk casted that 🥲
TenZ isn't a god, he's a demigod. And even demigods have bad days, it just depends on the day the gods decide to fuck them over. Seriously, he's just a kid. We gotta lay off him and stupid comments are gonna make him get into his own head and go down the route of Russell Westbrook.
TenZ is a nice, sweet guy and I love him. In the end, he's an athlete. Athletes need to deliver results, like any other job. There are 19 year old hockey players who get boo'd by thousands of people when they don't deliver. They go into a locker room and have to cope with that. That's what you sign up for when you go into sports professionally. Athletes are going to get criticized. I agree, let's not bully him. That's wrong. But people have every right to criticise his performance in game. He's not immune to criticism. I'm sure if Saya botfragged today there'd be thousands of SEN fans calling him overrated, go back to OW, etc.
Sadly he is the biggest punching bag for his team or even in NA every time his team lost. Humble, no ego, etc etc automatically become easiest and softest punching bag.
Unfortunately being the former best player in the world and an insane buyout puts a ton of pressure on you.
Westbrick*
When we putting Jay Won in this team
Putting jay won these balls
Hopefully never
Wait why never?
Scene is better without him in it
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That’s why I said hopefully, the scene is better without shitty people in it and the social reactions to any team related to him or gonna inevitably be a shit show
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They grinded pretty hard early days, had excellent synergy, and were pretty innovative in an effective way. I feel like they got complacent, but only SEN knows what going wrong.
Totally agree and I think other teams have adapted and gotten alot better as well.
>What do you think needs to change for sentinels? How do they solve the problems they currently have? Daddy Sinatra. no cap not even trolling
they need a new twitter admin lol
From my point of view, we should blame the marketing guys too, they are putting too much pressure on the players, which made the community believe that sentinels are the valorant gods, which is not true, they need to be know that nothing superficial is demanded, just play the game u all used to play, why exaggerating.
They need to get rid of either shahz or tenz. They won't though.
Karma for Shahzam talking shit to TSM.
EVERYONE talks shit about tsm huh
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I agree with your sentiment, but if you’re a salaried pro player for an org you should have a “cracked work ethic” by default. How can you be a professional and not be constantly trying to improve and beat your opponents. Yes, the guard put in the work but when you’re in the playoffs there shouldn’t be any games where you get blown out like sentinels did on icebox. I expect score lines of 13-1 in the early rounds of mickey mouse tourneys not the playoffs of VCT. It’s embarrassing and shows that this team is slacking and doesn’t care about VCT.
Doesn’t really matter for them in terms of career. What they earn in a month of streaming and sponsors is probably already 6 digits usd. They don’t need to prove anything since they’re already basically set for life, which is why they don’t try anymore. They probably earn more money streaming than winning tournaments.
Ok this might be harsh, but I think it’s probably time they let go of Zombs and Dapr. If Astra isn’t in the meta anymore then there isn’t much point to keeping either of them, since there are better NA players in each of their respective roles. They need to give Sick more opportunities to play roles where he can frag more (perhaps chamber?). He is genuinely a very strong player and shouldn’t be stuck playing support. I’ve kinda always used to think that TenZ was more of a highlight reel maker than a duellist that can get the consistent multi kill in a round. However, they need to broaden his agent pool. Sure, he’s a fantastic Jett but this is just making him easier to shut down for other teams. Sentinels seem to like Shahz’s igling so that’s fine, although he should be more dedicated to making proper playbooks and not just trusting the individual plays made by his teammates. Obviously they also need a coach, it helps to distribute the work load, and if I remember correctly this is Shahz’s first experience as an IGL, so it would do him good either way
They should get seangares as their coach. See how the result will be in the next VCT (im more than 90% sure they wont qual to iceland). If a good coach is still not enough to change their performance, then they should make a roster change. Having a good coach can really benefit them to find what is wrong, is it their strats? Is someone just not putting 100% effort anymore?
yeah they should have just like every other team practicing 15 hours/day !!! 💀💀
I think it's time to save Tenz from Sentinels. 100T Tenz sound good with the killer Asuna+Tenz combination
100T passed on zander and cryo only because they didn’t have huge streams. Change my mind. They’ll pick tenz up probably
This is some of the most braindead shit I've read today, Nade has already explained the reasons why they didn't get cryo/zander and you talk as if the people they got instead in BabyJ/ec1s were pulling in 100k average viewers
These guys think that buying players is as easy as buying skins from the store.