After years away from the competitive FPS scene, streaming phenomenon Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is returning to active competition after Sentinels announced that the former CS:GO pro will join the team’s VALORANT roster.
The organization announced the acquisition with a simple video on Twitter today. The announcement, which didn’t provide any additional details, was met with stunned surprise from the VALORANT community, with several questioning whether it was even real.
Sources within the organization confirmed to George Geddes and Dot Esports that the move is indeed real and that shroud will be taking on the controller role during the team’s upcoming run at the North American VCT Last Chance Qualifier. It’s unclear at this time which player shroud is filling in for, but it’s safe to assume TenZ and ShahZaM are still competing. On stream, shroud confirmed that ShahZaM is still the IGL.
A source at Sentinels has also confirmed to Geddes and Dot that shroud will compete at VCT Champions assuming Sentinels make it past the LCQ. Shroud also said on stream that a boot camp with the team “is coming up.”
Signs point toward shroud stepping in for SicK, who’s been struggling with his mental health over the past month or so. SicK had also been playing the controller role prior to him stepping back from the team.
Shroud, who is 28, competed in professional CS:GO in North America since the game first launched, most notably for Cloud9 for a four-year period from 2014 to 2017. He stepped down from the starting roster in 2017 and moved to full-time streaming for the organization before leaving the org and going independent in 2018. He signed a massive exclusive deal to stream on Mixer in October 2019 but returned to Twitch after the service folded in August 2020.
Shroud has notably not competed in professional VALORANT in any capacity but has played plenty of it on stream while also co-streaming numerous VCT events. The NA LCQ is scheduled for some time in August.
