The Sentinels VALORANT roster have solidified their spot atop North America with a 3-1 victory over 100 Thieves in today’s grand final of the NA VCT Stage Three Challengers Playoffs. With that win, Sentinels have claimed each of three regional finals for North American VALORANT: Masters One, the Stage Two Challengers Finals, and now the Stage Three Challengers Playoffs. No other team in the world has replicated such dominance within their region.
The series started on Bind, a surprise pick for a 100 Thieves team that doesn’t play there too often. With no set composition on Bind, by 100T’s admission after, they threw a couple of curveballs by putting steel on Jett and Hiko on Breach. They played pretty well on Bind despite this unfamiliarity, especially on defense. Still, a great game from TenZ on Reyna proved to be the difference-maker, with Sentinels taking map one 13-11.
100 Thieves ended up tying the series by stealing Sentinels’ first pick of Breeze with a more traditional composition. They trailed 11-8 late in the second half before winning five straight rounds on their attacking side to take away Breeze.
But as competitive as the first two maps were, Sentinels showed an unreal level of dominance in the following two maps. SicK once again proved that Haven is his personal playground on Phoenix, crushing 100T on defense in the first half and going into halftime leading 9-3. Sentinels ended up taking Haven 13-6. Split was almost a repeat performance, except Sentinels built their early lead in the first half on their attack side. Another 9-3 lead at halftime quickly turned into a Sentinels victory with a 13-5 scoreline, and they took the grand finals 3-1.
After the match, Sentinels said they weren’t too concerned with any teams that may be targeting them in Berlin, but they were particularly looking forward to playing teams from the EMEA region. Regarding their NA counterparts in 100T, zombs said that Sentinels need to reconsider some of their compositions—particularly their triple-initiator composition and having steel play Jett on Bind.
With a Champions spot already secured via the VCT points they’ve earned, the competition left for Sentinels during the rest of the year is international with Masters Three Berlin and Champions. They will look to build on their first successful run in international offline VALORANT, when they went undefeated in Masters Two Berlin without dropping a single map. 100 Thieves and Team Envy will join Sentinels at Masters Three Berlin, which begins Sept. 9.
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