Op-ed: Sentinels will go to VCT Masters Tokyo with Marved
It’s been a whirlwind and a half for the Sentinels organization in the VCT Americas League. After starting their VCT Americas League campaign on a strong 2-1 victory over 100 Thieves, the team experienced several setbacks that stopped the team from truly reaching the potential these players can reach.
However, I am here to tell you that changes today.
Earlier today, Sentinels revealed that the team's sixth man Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen would continue to play with the team instead of Tyson “TenZ” Ngo for the remainder of the VCT Americas League season.
Right now, Sentinels are 2-3 in the VCT Americas League. Yet, I am here to tell you that this team is very underrated. I am writing this piece to make a case that this decision will push Sentinels into the conversation of representing the VCT Americas League at VCT Masters Tokyo.
Sentinels sixth man Marved is the x-factor the team needed
Sentinels went 1-1 last week. This happened during a week when Marved experienced flight delays that only left them with two scrim games to practice before their match against LOUD. Yet despite these setbacks, they were a couple of rounds away from 2-0 LOUD, handing them their first series loss of the VCT Americas League. A couple of days later, they 2-0d MIBR while Marved was named MVP of the match.
Just watching their games, Sentinels play better with Marved in their lineup. That is no diss to TenZ by any means. TenZ has played well despite everything going on in his personal life. However, Marved’s experience as a Controller helps push Gustavo “sacy” Rossi back into his strong suit as an Initiator. Additionally, Marved helps Rory “dephh” Jackson during the game by providing midround calls that help diversify Sentinels' strategy each round.
When you combine these factors with the fact that he is still fragging, you get a player that slots exceptionally well into the team and enables other players to play well.
What can stop Sentinels Marved from finding success
When I spoke to Marved last week, he highlighted that the team had only been able to practice on Pearl, Haven, and Ascent before their series against LOUD. While he was able to find success on Fracture in their match against MIBR, map diversity will be a big question for the team moving forward in the VCT Americas League.
If Marved is unable to adapt to Sentinels’ system for other maps, the team could risk being one-dimensional and quickly figured out during the playoffs. Additionally, there are only three spots available at VCT Masters Tokyo. LOUD looks better than ever, while the rest of the VCT Americas League is improving. If Sentinels want to truly make their push toward a spot at VCT Masters Tokyo, they will need to start dominantly winning more matches.
Last week was a fantastic start with Marved. They will face off against Cloud9 in VCT Americas League Week Five. With a whole week of practice, it will be interesting to see if Sentinels can begin their campaign to VCT Masters Tokyo on a high note.
Sage got his start in esports as a volunteer writer in 2016 for esports organization, Dignitas. Since then, he has continued to work on his craft as a journalist and reporter for a number of established esports publications, such as esports.gg, Unikrn, Akshon Esports, Howla, The Player’s Lobby, Nerd Street Gamers, and most recently Dot Esports. Now, as a member of Esports Illustrated’s content team, Sage’s primary duties are centered around creating groundbreaking written and video content about the esports industry that impacts the community in a meaningful way. Sage graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Informatics. There, he was a member of the Rutgers Esports Executive Board, both as the head of the fighting game community and a videographer/photographer for the Content team.