a common talking point on reddit and youtube is that Sentinels have a puggy playstyle and don't use strats. How do they stay so consistent without them?
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Sentinels dont have strats?
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Well technically sentinels are very default heavy team. But that does not mean they don't have strats at all. In fact in most of their strats they rely more on their positioning and gunplay, sort of like FPX. They have so much aggresssive map control. But EU does have more flashy but super thought out executes which really distinguish them {watch bind first round in the finals for ex}.They did have strats but they do depend on defaulting way more than EU teams. But Sentinels are dominant cuz they literally have hands down the best mid round calling. Their reads are on point. The thing is IGL calling structure will always keep developing from time to time for EU teams but now since their main idealogy is around these strats and not depending as much on IGLing{they do have good mid round calling but Shahzam is just on point.} Eu teams are always poised to go ahead as time goes on. But at the same time NA can also get better at making these perfect executes work.
majority of diamond players don't understand fundamental things about this game and those are ~95th percentile in skill. expecting the average video gamer to be able to even grasp ANY kind of strategy is retarded. let alone strategy on the level that sentinels play.
majority of casters don't even understand what's going on with some exceptions like ddk they all just say random vapid bullshit.
Well you can understand where they're coming from even though they aren't exactly correct . Sentinels do have strategies and tactics , the problem is they are very shallow in their depth regarding those tactics/strats , they simply pick the most effective one and roll with it instead of going through the process of building something complicated which is difficult to counter , but the reason it works is because of their spectacular mid-rounding which is arguably unrivalled in the world and not seen anywhere for now at-least.
But the reason for their recent success has more to do with how they've evolved that style of adaptive mid-round play into being very disruptive , which basically goes against the execute heavy regions like Europe and Korea (Even Boaster mentioned how Sentinels played a different valorant than anyone in the tournament) the players being extremely skilled and intelligent plays a part in this and also why it works , Shahzam has really good reads on the opponent team which he feeds to the players , the players based on that and what might be coming ,make individual decisions that try to disrespect a play, and them being very skilled plays a part , since they know when to push and be aggressive and at what point to stop and retreat, this just messes up whatever the enemy team is trying to do and catches them off-guard. Europe just builds such strats in depth that it's difficult for even Sen to disrupt that , but the skill diff works in their favour.
Although this disruptive style of play has been more come into play recently post TenZ joining and post their loss to BBG , it's something that Sick and dapr always tried to do but the team as a whole did not , but after TenZ's joining and him being a type of player who particularly partakes in that kind of style , I believe Shazam went through the process of reinventing the team , and well it seemingly worked.
summary:
-Shahzam massive brain, sick ass mid round calls
-Sentinels relies on simple but effective strats/mid round calls while the rest of the world follows strict and structured executes which really fucks with everyone else's strategy on defense
-SEN is just so insanely skilled that any counter thrown at them is just aim diff'd out of existence
-the players themselves make individual decisions they think will help the team rather than just follow the orders of the IGL, which allows a freer playstyle
-The addition of TenZ made this strategy even more viable because of his insane skill
They do by choosing which comp to play in different maps, how each player were set on one site (or changeup whenever they want). They trust their decision making and game sense more but they way they defend or attack a site depends on the call so that counts as a strat. Fnatic do have a better setup post-plan (viper molly or brim molly which imo is very boring but a viable tactic) and attacking site but they really really depends on their setup.
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