Sentinels Makes Shroud Practice Dropping the Spike After Missplay In VCT NA LCQ

The North American (NA) Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) has been the talk of the town. The first series between Sentinels and The Guard broke many records and proved the worth and the entertainment value of Valorant esports. In this series, fans were confused to see Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek carry the spike and plant it as Viper, who is usually good at post-plant plays and setups. Sentinels also had a Sage in their composition in the decider map of the series against The Guard but failed to make the agent carry the spike and plant.

Shazam posts a video of Shroud practicing dropping the spike

Despite losing its first series in the Last Chance Qualifier and implementing a poorly thought-out strat, Sentinels is approaching the “spike planting” situation with memes and jokes.

In-game leader Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan first addressed the spike planting issue on his stream and clarified that it was an honest mistake since dapr was their designed spike carrier. He said, “People are mad at me or [Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty] for that, but that’s not the plan. The plan is for dapr to plant. They just failed on that part." He added that it was a bad mistake that cost the team the map but it will never happen again.

Late on 5th August, Shazam jokingly posted a video on his Twitter where Sentinels was making Shroud practice an odd skill: drop the spike on spawn. In the video, Shroud can be seen picking up and dropping the spike multiple times at the spawn point at the team’s bootcamp while Shazam asks him to drop it one more time.

What happened on the decider map?

One of the main reasons who Sentinels was criticized by fans pro players was because of its decision to have Shroud carry and plant the spike. This reason most likely cost them the series against The Guard.

With the series being tied 1-1, everything was on the line for Sentinels to win on Icebox and things were going according to plan at the start of the final map. But The Guard fought back and caught up with Sentinel’s round wins and ended halftime with a 5-7 score. On attack, Sentinels won the pistol round and translated the momentum into further round wins. However, Shroud was the team’s spike carrier while playing Viper, an agent who is best known for playing from behind using her abilities and lineups to her advantage. It is also very important to stay alive as Viper since one can use their Snake Bite while the enemy tries to defuse the spike.

Notably, sentinel main Michael “dapr” Gulino was playing Sage, an agent players usually rely on to safely plant the spike since she has a wall that can block enemy attacks and help her escape.

Initially, he was confused FunPlus Phoenix Valorant pro Kyrylo “ANGE1” Karasov was confused by the strategy at play and wrote, “Is it some new meta that sage puts wall on icebox and someone else tries to plant?” Later, he mirrored the same sentiment as other fans and commented, “Let shroud play clutches! plant someone else please, he wins it all if survives.”

After Sentinels and Shazam poked fun at the situation, Valorant fans realized that it was a mistake and not an actual strategy. NRG streamer Alan "ethos" Ruan commented on Shazam's video, "You’re telling me it wasn’t intentional and that he just kept accidentally grabbing the bomb . I legitimately thought there was some crazy reasoning behind having Shroud plant instead of dapr that my brain was just too small to understand."

Sentinels is still in contention for that one final spot to make it to Valorant Champions in Istanbul, Turkey and after winning the Lower Bracket Round 1 against Shopify Rebellions, it is gearing up to face 100 Thieves next.