The Issue with Replacing Dephh

Look, I'm not the biggest dephh believer. In fact, I think his calling is not as strong as other IGLs in NA.

However, I think it's stupid to believe making Sacy IGL would improve SEN's performance at all.

Sacy is not IGL material, he and pAncada were clueless throughout their first appearance on split, while dephh was the only one making strats. He's a good midrounder, don't get me wrong, and he could definitely study up on set plays and enemy team strategies and learn to become an IGL at some point--but as he is right now he would not be able to take up that mantle for a while.

In my opinion, there is nobody currently available in NA that would be a worthwhile replacement for dephh as it is. That is not to say he's the best IGL Sentinels could have, just the best of the rest.

-FNS is not going to leave NRG anytime soon
-I'm iffy on stellar and 100T in general, their discipline has looked rusty every since sean gares left.
-vanity calls too much on feeling to be an S-tier IGL in 2023.

Personally, I believe Valyn and Steel are both vastly better than dephh as IGLs, but:

-Valyn primarily plays smokes, and I'm not even going to bother explaining why adding yet another smokes player to the roster with pancada in it is a bad idea, and while he can flex, I don't think he'd be as comfortable on other roles quickly enough to give repeat his star individual performances thus far.

-While Steel is an S-tier IGL, he has huge issues with team chemistry, and his style of leading is so specific and uncooperative with anyone else's vision that, either the roster has to be up to him, or everyone has to adapt to his style of play--which might create issues for players with opinionated ideas of how to play like Sacy, and create friction between him and Sykko.

Dephh isn't even that bad, he's just mid by international standards. He's top 4 IGLs NA, putting side the huge gap between 3rd, 2nd, and 1st place.
So long as he studies a lot more with the meta that's been developing (and will develop now that Gekko's out), then his calling will be adequate enough to set up his star roster to success, maybe not to NRG levels, but success nonetheless.

I predict Sentinels to be top 3 in the Americas league after a year or so.

Ain't reading allat 😹

shahzam 😎

Biggest problem is role issues, only johnqt fits role-wise

SEN will never be top 3 as long as LOUD, NRG, and LEV are around. even FURIA and 100T are arguably better!

Ain't reading allat

SEN steel is the last hope

I think a lot of people on this site just look at the stats of "oh dephh bottom frag = he bad" and don't seem to think much about the bigger picture of the team structure and how all the pieces of a valorant team fit together. Dephh tends to play the very heavy lurk roles (kj, cypher, astra etc...) so of course his stats aren't going to look very good. He does what he is asked to do. He may not be a flashy star player but he will get you wins.

Another thing people seem to not talk about, that this BcJ tweet points out wonderfully https://twitter.com/BcJFPS/status/1635762319358844928 is that dephh has worked with the entire coaching staff of SEN before when he was on XSET and clearly those coaches value his skills as an IGL and player enough to bring him over to work with him on this new roster as well.

I just think it's kind of crazy for people to talk about replacing him when they are a brand new team who haven't been practicing for very long time (a month or so) when we saw them play ONE game against maybe the best team in the world...