Sentinels VALORANT star pANcada says he’ll miss VCT Americas Kickoff

A big change just a week before Kickoff.

Gustavo "Sacy" Rossi (L) and Bryan "pANcada" Luna of Sentinels pose at the VALORANT Champions Tour 2023: LOCK//IN
Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

The status of Sentinels’ starting VALORANT roster for the 2024 VCT season has not been made clear during this offseason. And going into the VCT Americas Kickoff event, one of the starters from last year will not be participating.

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Former VALORANT world champion Bryan “pANcada” Luna confirmed on a recent stream that he will not be playing in the opening matches, paving the way for sixth man/regular offseason starter Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro to step in.

Zellsis and Sentinels lift a trophy after winning AfreecaTV VALORANT LEAGUE.
Will the winning continue? Photo via @Sentinels on X

As first reported by VALORANTZONE and roughly translated from Portuguese to English, pANcada responded to a question from chat asking if he was anxious ahead of the VCT Americas Kickoff, saying “Anxious for what? I’m not playing either way.” He also reportedly has put in a “!kickoff” chat command that says “I got kicked and got off.”

PANcada also said he’s currently in Brazil, which certainly would make it challenging for him to compete in Los Angeles at the Kickoff. Sentinels CEO Rob Moore said in a recent interview with Plat Chat host Wyatt River that pANcada was dealing with visa issues.

But there might be more issues than just visa ones. During the same stream, pANcada alluded to some frustrations he had last season playing Killjoy. “I had to play an entire season with [Killjoy] just playing retake. Trash agent.” The role changes made by Sentinels last year were a huge focal point of the season as the team opted to move pANcada off the controller role and onto sentinel, after just recently winning a world championship with the former.

The team will seemingly have to rely on Zellsis for Kickoff weekend, but the squad has played well with him stepping in across different roles during this offseason. In the 10 series Sentinels played with Zellsis during this past offseason, the team won all 10.

Author
Image of Scott Robertson
Scott Robertson
VALORANT lead staff writer, also covering CS:GO, FPS games, other titles, and the wider esports industry. Watching and writing esports since 2014. Previously wrote for Dexerto, Upcomer, Splyce, and somehow MySpace. Jack of all games, master of none.