Sentinels
Sentinels
North America
Unranked
N4RRATE
Marshall Massey
bang
Sean Bezerra
Zellsis
Jordan Montemurro
zekken
Zachary Patrone
johnqt
Mohamed Amine Ouarid
have defeated
100 Thieves
100 Thieves
North America
Unranked
zander
Alexander Dituri
Cryocells
Matthew Panganiban
eeiu
Daniel Vucenovic
Boostio
Kelden Pupello
Asuna
Peter Mazuryk
3-1 in the grand finals of North America Stage 3: Challengers Playoffs.
Both teams had already qualified for Masters: Berlin prior to the match. The winner of the match earned the regional title, $20,000 USD more in prizing, and a higher seed in Masters.
The match was the third 100 Thieves have played since qualifying for Masters: Berlin. They were already qualified by the time they played and lost to Sentinels for the first time in the upper finals, as well as during their lower finals match against
Envy
Envy
Inactive
Marved
Jimmy Nguyen
Victor
Victor Wong
crashies
Austin Roberts
FiNESSE
Pujan Mehta
yay
Jaccob Whiteaker
afterwards.
"I think right now we're in a good state," Peter "Asuna" Mazuryk said. "We plan on just refining our map pool and looking back at these games — and we are trying in these seeding matches because we need the VODs to look back and work on our maps and adapt and stuff like that."
Sentinels' in-game leader Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan already said earlier in the tournament he looks to win every match regardless of the stakes. So both teams came in ready to give it their all even if the atmosphere was a little more relaxed for them.
100 Thieves caught both fans by surprise when they started the series with Joshua "steel" Nissan, normally the team's sentinel player, on Jett with Operator. As unusual as the pick was for steel, he tied for the map lead in first kills with six and 100 Thieves just barely lost Bind 13-11.
"Because it was a best of five and we were essentially forced to play Bind at some point, we decided that we were going to play it first because we're typically horrible on the first map," steel said afterward. "We haven't actually been practicing Bind in a little while and we didn't really have a composition, but we knew that we were going to start attack on the first map. And we knew that it didn't really make sense to start as Cypher. So I was like, 'I'll play Jett.' And then I think begrudgingly everyone else agreed."
Sentinels weren't caught off guard by the spontaneous pick.
"We were kind of making fun of [the Jett pick]," Michael "dapr" Gulino said to a chorus of agreement from his teammates. "I think we used the word 'desperate.'"
"I mean them picking Bind in the first place was kind of a desperation pick," ShahZaM added on.
Everyone's agent picks returned to normal on Breeze. 100 Thieves won the final five rounds of the map to take it 13-11. That map was the first 100 Thieves have taken from Sentinels since April.
dapr wasn't shy about getting in some BM throughout the series.But on the third map, Haven, 100 Thieves swapped steel off of a sentinel agent again and onto KAY/O. The newest agent has been a unique flex pick for steel over the course of the tournament — the final two maps of the match were the ninth and 10th times he picked KAY/O in S3 Challengers Playoffs. The only other player to pick KAY/O in this tournament was Sentinels' Hunter "SicK"
Mims, who did so for just one map against
Rise
Rise
Inactive
.
"I think something that we struggle with was mid-round information and stacking accordingly so having KAY/O allows us to have like a support agent/information agent with his knife and have a more active defense," Nick "nitr0" Cannella said earlier in the tournament. "So I think it kind of forced us to play the game better, if that makes any sense."
He also admitted that KAY/O is just a comfortable agent for not just steel, but almost everyone on the team. His toolkit is reminiscent of utility in Counter-Strike, the game in which all of the team's veterans made their names in.
Sentinels made a different use of KAY/O when they ran the agent, instead swapping out another initiator for KAY/O. But SicK didn't run KAY/O again after the team's opening match in which they lost to Rise on Ascent. SicK pointed out that they banned Ascent in every match after that.
"I mean in scrims KAY/O was pretty good for us, I think I was having a lot of impact in scrims," SicK said. "But when it came to the match, I was just out of position a lot and I wasn't able to help my team with his utility."
Sentinels' sudden discomfort in playing KAY/O themselves might have given 100 Thieves some hope that Sentinels wouldn't be able to properly play against the initiating agent, but that proved not to be the case. Sentinels took Haven 13-6 and then Split 13-5. That final map was enough for Sentinels to close out the match 3-1, further improving their 2021 record over 100 Thieves to 6-0.
Despite the scoreline, those final maps weren't without fireworks. Asuna used Bladestorm to get an ace on Split, the lone ace of the match.
The KAY/O pick was just one of many differences in composition between the two teams. Sentinels smoke and anchor player, Jared "zombs" Gitlin, was unimpressed by 100 Thieves' choices in agents, including their triple initiator composition featuring KAY/O.
"I think their composition is just not how the game should be played," zombs said. "You're missing utility that's necessary that you need in the rounds and that they just don't have."
100 Thieves have time to either refine and master their compositions to prove zombs wrong or work on new ones if they begin to believe he's right. Masters: Berlin is a month away. But they can only prepare so much, after all, neither team fully knows what to expect moving forward.
"We have no idea what the format's gonna look like or really anything," ShahZaM said. "When you don't know you kind of just want to play for the best seed."
"I just want more transparency," Spencer "Hiko" Martin said. "I think that's the biggest thing that Riot can do that will let us as pros know as much as we can instead of fumbling around last minute like, 'Oh, what does the seeding actually mean?' We don't even know. I mean, we know how much prize money we win, but we don't know the value of placing first versus second versus third until it's already over."
And because of that, the teams aren't fully sure how to prepare, when to arrive, or what to expect.
"Nothing is set in stone," steel said. "I'm not sure when we are required to be in Europe, I don't know what with specifics to any sort of quarantines, for example. I don't know when Riot would expect us there, how long they pay for the trips. We don't have all this information yet."
But 100 Thieves at least have a basic plan to start with.
"We've only had a brief discussion about it," steel said. "I think we're going to practice for a week before we travel and then we'll have another week and a bit, I'd imagine, before the actual tournament starts."
Their practice is with one goal in mind, the same goal everyone else will have: dethrone Sentinels.
Sentinels aren't too concerned about any specific strategies teams may have prepared for them.
"I think with our style, a lot of the international teams can't really have a hard counter for us because we're just so on the fly that even if they come up with something one round, we could just do something next round," SicK said. "So I'm not really worried about that."
And why should he or any of his teammates be worried about it? They've been on top all year and no one else has had any answer as of yet.
Perhaps Masters: Berlin will be different. We'll find out in a month.
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