When Michael “shroud” Grzesiek returned to the professional gaming scene with Sentinels’ pro VALORANT roster last month, he sent shockwaves through the general esports community.
The 28-year-old has been one of the most popular streamers since his retirement from CS:GO, but his comeback during the VCT NA Last Chance Qualifier was a story that reached many people a few weeks ago. He even had a handful of different highlight moments that threw longtime fans of the player back in time to when he was constantly seen on highlight YouTube channels and the CS:GO subreddit.
Shroud’s return wasn’t enough to push Sentinels’ season forward into VALORANT Champions 2022, but the talented star confirmed that although his time with the team was most likely coming to a close, his time in the competitive scene is far from over. During a recent stream, shroud confirmed that his contract with Sentinels was only for the LCQ and that he’s a free agent moving forward.
Even still, he is keeping his options completely open for continuing his career as a professional VALORANT player, whether it’ll be with Sentinels or another organization. “The story is not over, it’s just on pause right now because everything is done, [and] Sentinels is done,” shroud told his viewers. “They’re not playing until franchising, if they’re even in franchising. Fingers crossed that they are, and if they’re in and they still want to play with me, then we can figure something out. It could still happen.”
When fellow streamer and former CS:GO teammate Tarik asked him about his future plans, shroud also said that if he was able to join a franchised team in L.A., he would love to continue, even if it meant streaming less or not streaming at all due to practice. He mentioned that he was “always jealous of LCS and League” when he played CS:GO professionally, so a team in his home city could be perfect.
At the moment, Sentinels hasn’t released an official statement concerning the roster, which means that the dream is still alive for those hoping to see shroud in action on-stage next year.
