Before anyone starts flaming me, hear me out. I'm not saying that Alfa is a bad player by any means, far from it in fact. Alfa is an amazing player with insane game sense and an even better aim. What I'm specifically saying is that he is a bad player for the sentinel role, mainly anchoring.
His setups are average and he has a history of over peeking and dying instead of playing off his utility, whether that be off his trips or alarmbots. Yes, he has singlehandedly won rounds by just killing everyone but he has also lost the same amount of rounds just because he didn't have the patience and composure. Again, he's a great player and one of the best but his anchoring on site is more attributed to him being a better aimer than him being a smarter player.
Now one can argue that he doesn't need to play like a "traditional sentinel" and I agree, he doesn't need to. It's just that he could be so much better if he did.
Alfa as a player can be compared more to Benjyfishy than Less and Nats. Benjyfishy especially had a history of dying during Champs 2024 while anchoring on site simply because he lacked the patience and composure to play off his util and instead was peeking unnecessarily, check out Slideshow's recent Team Heretics videos for context. Also about Alfa having average setups, check out Thinking Man's Valorant vidoes, specifically the Loud matchup during Champs 2023 comes to mind where he was doing the exact same turret outside C on Lotus giving Loud easy reads and denial of information by breaking the turret every round and not switching setups let alone sites.
Lastly, some people might say that he doesn't lurk but I honestly don't think that really matters much. As much as I like sentinels lurking during specific rounds, lurking really comes down to team strategy and Fnatic as a team really don't revolve around lurking so he doesn't need to. Besides, it's not like sentinel has to be the one lurking, it can be the controller at times as well.
Alfa has always said that he finds playing sentinels boring and likes playing duelists more, agents where he can actually be aggressive.
When I think of great sentinels, I think of Less and Nats first, Alfa and Benjy second. But hey that's just my opinion and you are completely free to think otherwise.
In conclusion: if Alfajer so great, why he didnt go Madrid?
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