The most exciting team in VALORANT has added another accolade to their ranks -- North American Ignition Series champions. Sentinels run-and-gunned their way through the competition at the PAX Arena Invitational to win their organization's first major title in VALORANT, defeating Cloud9 in a closely contested 3-1 best-of-five final.
Three months after retiring from Overwatch and its premier competition, the Overwatch League, as reigning league MVP and champion, Sentinels ace Jay "sinatraa" Won has officially arrived in his newest venture, opening a new chapter in his already illustrious esports career.
Here are the five takeaways from an exciting (and surprising) five-day tournament that ended with a Sentinels coronation on Sunday.
1. The ascent of Sentinels
A few weeks ago after the Sentinels fell in the semifinals of the Pulse Invitational, I wrote it was only a matter of time before they were making finals and raising trophies of their own. It didn't even take them a month to fulfill their potential with a stunning victory in the second-ever North American Ignition Series event, only dropping two maps en route to a championship.
While there can be arguments about whether Sentinels are now the No. 1 team in North America -- a myriad of teams make up the upper echelon of the region's hierarchy -- there is no denying that no team right now in NA has the same amount of trust that the Sentinels share with one another. A team built off a Sage player like Hunter "SicK" Mims often leading the charge in pistol rounds and sinatraa making wild plays consistently around the map needs to trust one another to make any of the chaotic maneuvers work. If one member of the team is doing something unorthodox, expect there to be another Sentinel player behind him, ready to trade and back up the plan of that forward-thinking teammate.
Aside from their heavy pushes and quick tempo, Sentinels, as cliché as it sounds, can aim from their ace down to the support players. SicK and Michael "dapr" Gulino, the team's resident backline on Sage and Cypher, respectively, would be No. 1 options on a slew of other professional teams in North America. In the final against C9, SicK stepped up to be the team's MVP, time and time again either finding himself either opening up a round with a first blood (11 in the final) and/or being the last Sentinel standing, somehow pulling off an outnumbered clutch to keep his squad steamrolling towards the finish line. During the final round of the tournament, it was SicK, on his own, putting the final touches on the series with another calm and collected clutch like it was any other day at the office.
Along with picking up their first piece of hardware, Sentinels continued their ownership of VALORANT's newest map, Ascent, pushing their overall record on the map to 12-1. C9, a team that also came into the tournament confident about their Ascent play, even blowing out TSM 13-1 on the map at the Pulse Invitational, were no match for Sentinels in the group stages or in the final on the map. From sinatraa's Odin bullet spam on the map to Shahzeeb "ShahZaM" Khan asserting himself as the region's best Breach player, Ascent is not somewhere you ever want to meet up with the Sentinels.
As it was with TSM when they won the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown crown and took over as leaders of a fluctuating pack, Sentinels will now have a neon red bull's-eye on their backs as the rest of North America aims to take the crown from them in the next Ignition Series tournament expected in August.
2. Cloud9, the bridesmaid of North America
For the second straight tournament, C9 made it all the way to the final, only to run out of momentum. At the Pulse Invitational, they had their best win as a team when they knocked out TSM but then fell to an in-form and synchronized Gen.G Esports in the final. This go around, C9 were able to defeat every other team they came across in the competition except for the Sentinels, losing to them in both the group stages and the final.
For a majority of the tournament, Tyson "TenZ" Ngo and his in-your-face style with signature agents Jett and Raze were too much for opponents to handle. Teams were never able to find a comfortable position against C9 because at the start of a round, TenZ would be already diving at them, usually grabbing first blood and tipping the scales heavily into his side's favor. TenZ was an ace through and through for C9 during the PAX Arena Invitational, leading all players in kills-per-round (1.04) and Average Combat Score (311). In terms of first bloods, he also led all participants in that category as well, TenZ's first bloods (79) doubling the second most on his team with Mitch "Mitch" Semago's 39.
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At times, TenZ was willing his team to round victories, using Jett's ultimate to steal away points when C9's economy was in shambles. And while the Sentinels didn't necessarily shut him down as Gen.G did in the Pulse Invitational grand final, they made sure to not let him run amok as he generally does, killing him 73 times over the course of the series that went 87 rounds. Sentinels made sure if TenZ got a kill, he would be traded out quickly instead of chaining multi-kills together, forcing his teammates to clutch in tense situations. When push came to shove, Sentinels simply had more firepower behind them, with C9 lacking that true No. 2 or clutch player to wrangle rounds away when TenZ was out of commission.
TenZ is a cheat code@Cloud9 - 1@Sentinels - 1 pic.twitter.com/DvwpGKRx30
— The Esports Writer (@FionnOnFire) July 26, 2020
Aside from TenZ, the secondary damage dealer on C9 was Skyler "Relyks" Weaver, who ranked No. 34 out of all players in the tournament with an ACS of 215, almost 100 points behind his teammate. C9 as a whole has become better playing as a five-man unit, with Mitch and Relyks having their specific games where they take over, but even now, the narrative of C9 is the same as it was a month with TenZ being a one-man army. He has a better, more consistent supporting cast now, but in these back-to-back finals, Gen.G and Sentinels have shown that if a team can keep TenZ in relative check with his explosive entry play, C9 has trouble finding success.
3. TSM and T1 disappoint
The two finalists from the inaugural North America Ignition Series final seemed to be on another collision course after the group stages came to an end. The champions, TSM, had survived the group of death, Group A, without losing a match, defeating 100 Thieves, Built By Gamers (formerly Code7) and tournament surprise Homeless. T1 had even less trouble than TSM, blitzing through their group and putting up the largest positive map differential of any team during the group stages. With TSM getting Team Envy in the first round and T1 on the other side of the bracket getting a chance to humble the amateurs from Homeless, it appeared as if we could have a sequel final on our hands.
Homeless had other ideas, knocking out T1 in back-to-back games to eliminate them in shocking fashion. A day later, it was the overwhelming pressure of Sentinels that knocked out TSM from the playoffs, setting the course for what eventually be a Sentinels vs. C9 final. It illuminated the idea that regardless of how well a team does in a few set of events in a row, with VALORANT in such a fledgling state, trying to figure out who truly the best teams are is going to be a month-long affair that might not be settled until a few roster changes happen and the calendar turns to 2021.
T1 never found its footing in their series with Homeless. The gigantic favorites to move on against a team that had only been practicing together for less than a week, T1 lost a close first game on Bind before getting trounced on Ascent, a map they had previously been practically flawless on. After a group stage where he was the top performer of all players in the tournament, Victor "Food" Wong found himself struggling to find the same sort of success that carried T1 in the group stages.
Their Sage-less composition that was overpowering teams early in the tournament didn't work against Homeless, and when they did play the Sage, in-game leader Keven "AZK" Larivière looked awkward on it compared to his other agent choices such as Sova or Breach. The only positive of the team moving away from the Sage was getting their primary Operator player, Tyler "Ska" Latham, on an agent with a bit more carry potential, Sova, which he played well on throughout the event, still putting up 23 kills on Bind in the loss to Homeless.
In the case of TSM, it was less of a surprise and more of a punch in the mouth from a team prepared to dissect the road it took to win the first Ignition Series. Sentinels knew TSM heavily relied on Operator play with ace Matthew "Wardell" Yu and decided that they wouldn't give TSM time to make use of the long-ranged sniper, throwing countless bodies at TSM with flashes necessary to stifle Wardell throughout the series. And since Sentinels won every pistol round in their match with TSM, they were able to keep TSM's economy down early and often, either forcing TSM to panic buy an Operator or to put Wardell on a rifle. The result? Wardell didn't have nearly the same impact as he would have otherwise and the Sentinels, more confident in their rifling compared to TSM, ran away with the series without trailing once.
This isn't the end for either team, as I still have them both as top five in North America, but it is a wake-up call. T1's pressure to win a major title will begin to mount as TSM, knocked down for the first time under the team's banner, will have to reassess their strategies and playstyle going into the next tournament. The two top dogs in North America have been knocked down, and it's going to be interesting to see how each responds from a disappointing showing.
4. Sign Homeless
Homeless didn't have the fairytale Hollywood ending by winning the PAX Arena Invitational, losing to C9 in a lackluster semifinal performance, but this team has legs to do something in the North American VALORANT scene. Created by Harrison "psalm" Chang and Rory "dephh" Jackson, two members of the FaZe Clan trial team that finished fourth in the first Ignition Series tournament, this team overperformed all expectations. Not only did they make it out of the group of death, beating Built By Gamers and 100 Thieves while narrowly losing to TSM, Homeless came out in the playoffs and routed T1, a team created from some of the biggest names in all of VALORANT.
Though there is a chance of this squad being a one-hit-wonder that caught T1 on the right day, I honestly believe that this team, or at least the core of it, can be a top-five squad in North America. Psalm is one of the brightest minds we have in esports, excelling at almost every video game he has decided to turn pro in, and those smarts have extended to the teams he has built in VALORANT's short history. Before he starred on that impressive FaZe trial squad, he captained China Nguyen, the best amateur team in North America aside from Together we are terrific, who were eventually picked up by Team Envy. Phat "supamen" Le might be the next big star in the VALORANT scene, at the forefront of the Homeless upset over T1, putting on his best TenZ impression at parts while playing Brimstone of all agents.
last round of the series...RIP ears pic.twitter.com/t1f0qS19dY
— supamen (@supamencf) July 25, 2020
When Together we are terrific were still an amateur side, I sang their praises and told organizations to sign them. As part of Team Envy, they've solidified themselves as a top 10 North American team with a ceiling that they still haven't reached. Now, I will talk up Homeless, a team that I was already expecting big things from before they had their hectic run at the PAX Arena Invitational. Psalm might not be the most mechanically gifted player in VALORANT, nor did he have a laundry list of accomplishments in Counter-Strike, but the man is a brilliant tactician and an eye for talent. Homeless stole the hearts of fans this past weekend and now with more time to practice, this could only be the beginning to an even greater tale down the line.
5. Spectator mode still needs a lot of work (but viewership is on the rise!)
As always, here is the section where I complain about VALORANT's spectator mode being subpar and begging to be fixed. The X-ray feature added a few weeks ago continues to be the best thing they've done with spectating since the game released, but obviously, there is more to be done before I can even compare VALORANT's infant esports scene with the likes of a Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six Siege.
Still, viewership once again was up for a VALORANT tournament. Sentinels facing off with Cloud9 peaked with over 80,000 concurrent viewers, growing from T1 vs. TSM at the first Ignition Series tournament that peaked with a little over 50,000 viewers. Not only are the views on Twitch doing well, but so are the highlights and replays on YouTube, where some matches have over 500,000 views and growing as narratives and characters are starting to form in North America. Only in its fourth month, we already have storylines such as TenZ and his carrying duties on C9, Wardell's trash-talking on TSM and Sentinels with playstyle resembling a Zerg rush from StarCraft. Fans are starting to want to tune in to see T1, TSM, C9, Sentinels and the rest take the fields of VALORANT, continuing this crazy chase for the No. 1 rank in North America, where at the moment it feels like almost any top 10 team can beat the other in the right circumstance.
VALORANT esports, as I've said all along, has the potential to be one of the biggest in the world. Come offline tournaments where the international teams can play against each other at large-scale events? Things could get even bigger. But first, upgrade the spectator mode. For a game that has so many heart-pounding moments and exciting outplays, it needs a spectator (and replay) mode worthy of making it something that can be enjoyed worldwide.