Sentinels Beat NUTURN to Reach Grand Finals of VCT Masters Iceland 2021: Stats, Highlights, Interview

The North American top seeds Sentinels have made it to the grand finals of VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters - Reykjavík without dropping even a single map. They handed a quick ‘2-0’ defeat to NUTURN Gaming, dropping them down to the lower bracket while comfortably achieving a grand finals slot for themselves. However, it was not the usual TenZ - ShahZaM combo to lead the Sentinels charge tonight, this responsibility was shouldered by SicK with his impeccable Raze and Phoenix play. On the other hand, NUTURN found themselves stuck, their set-pieces ineffective and the ability to brawl face up limited against the individual talent of the Sentinels lineup.

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Sentinels Defeat NUTURN ‘2-0’, Secures Grand Finals Slot

Sentinels have won their third consecutive match of the tournament with a ‘2-0’ scoreline. Already having dealt with Fnatic and Team Vikings, the North American organization delivered a heavy blow to NUTURN Gaming tonight, running them down with crisp performances across both the maps.

It is safe to say that Sentinels do not shy away from a good challenge, why else would they choose not to ban Bind, which is NUTURM Gaming’s most comfortable and strongest map to play on. But despite giving them all the advantage they could have asked, Sentinels went on to crush them with peri only able to secure 1 kill.

The second map was a repeat telecast of the first, just on a different map. Though it seemed as if NUTURN was moving around better and the rounds were a lot more closer, the end result rarely favored them, resulting in them dropping down to the lower bracket.

Result: Sentinels Beat NUTURN ‘2-0’

NUTURN was quick to choose Bind as their map pick after Sentinels decided not to ban it, but despite the advantage, the Koreans felt a lot shorter than expected. The problem started with Sentinels playing a very passive defence, which made NUTURN work really hard to execute.  Surprisingly their set-pieces were not as effective, with Sentinels putting heavy pressure on the shower area to deny a coordinated hit. This forced NUTURN to take more fights upfront, where Sentinels had a clear upper hand, resulting in a swift ‘13-5’ defeat.

The next map on Haven witnessed a similar storyline, it seemed that NUTURN were reading the map better and the rounds were much closer than last time. Unfortunately, the majority of them went in Sentinels favour once again resulting in a quick ‘13-4’ defeat for NUTURN.

Stats

• The standout player for Sentinels this time was SicK on the back of his incredible performance with both Raze and Phoenix. Though TenZ still had more kills than him, the ADR output by SicK was just insane at 215.6.
  
  
• Though NUTURN was not able to achieve victory, they were not too afraid to pick fights and Lakia kept pace with the opponents pretty well by securing 29 kills in total. However, the thing that would knock the socks off ScreaM is his headshot percentage at 45%.
  
  
• The overall aim of NUTURN was slightly better who had an average headshot percentage of 26.2%, while that of Sentinels was 24.4%.

Highlights

SicK pulls off a 1v2 clutch on Bind, taking a quick kill with a slight peek and then lobs a perfectly placed Paint Shell followed by a quick peek to win it.

Dapr with the awareness, dodges NUTURN players within the site on Bind only to hit back and secure a triple kill. 

Sentinels pulls off a near perfect retake as they give the 'B-Site' on Haven to NUTURN, only smack them hard and take it right back out of their grasp.

Peri knocks the wind out of Tenz' Jett with a Sheriff as he tries to use Updraft to peek from over the walls into the site.

The final round on Haven where Sentinels just crushed an all out assault by NUTURN, winning the map and the series to advance to the grand finals.

Interview: ShahZaM Reveals Why Sentinels Did Not Ban Bind

ShahZaM during the post-match interview spoke about why Sentinels decided to leave Bind unbanned despite knowing that it is NUTURN’s strongest map, he said that

“Yeah so, we knew they were going to be a scary team to play against because they have a lot of set strats. We actually practiced with them the first day and they actually surprised us by playing very different from the other regions, lots of set plays, lots of unique plays with their ultimate's. Honestly, I wanna take some of their plays. 

Really creative but we actually enjoy playing against such kind of teams more because I feel like my preparation becomes easy. Really solid game plan, obviously the boys came up clutch too. I think it really came down to prep for me, at least calling, so we are confident going in.”

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