2023 100T vs 2024 Sentinels

#1

BlueSLYR

I wanted to analyze how the 2023 100T roster began and ended and use it to understand how this 2024 Sentinels roster may end up. During the offseason leading up to the 2023 VCT, 100T saw massive success making one player change (will->cryo) as seen during the red bull home ground. They particularly benefited from cryo's chamber but also the fact that a few of their players we're also doing really good (specifically Bang and Derrek). I would argue a major aspect of their success off season success was because of how the meta worked in their favor, specifically allowing cryo to play jett and chamber while also letting Derrek play sova, fade, and breach (we'll get back to this point). Moving to the start of VCT with lock-in, they managed to beat EDG and FUT before getting eliminated by Fnatic (which makes sense given that it's Fnatic). Then at the start of VCT regular season, the first game they played against Sentinels was a loss. I would argue this loss was in part due to the meta shift away away from chamber and more towards double controller + skye, for instance fracture comps for most teams changed since chamber was no longer viable (which meant no neon + kayo + breach + chamber + brim) a comp 100T saw a lot success with. Throughout the season they sort of fell in the middle of the pack yet still beat respectable teams like Lev and Furia. I think people forgot how good teams like NRG, Loud, and C9 would end up being because all the attention was placed on 100T during the off season. Also on the point of Derrek's agents, since the team overall moved toward the meta of double controller and single initiator, he definitely took a hit since he had to play skye (which isn't as good as his other agents) and if Asuna played skye Derrek filled the extra role (agents he evidently wasn't comfortable at). Also important to mention coach Mikes was probably overwhelmed with everything he had to do alone.

Now lets compare this to Sentinels. If we assume Zellsis is actually going to be starting, then here's what we can know:

2 player changes during the off season (-Marved (IGL Controller), -Pancada (Controller), +johnqt (IGL Senitnel/flex), +Zellsis (flex)
- an experienced IGL who can play sentinel (johnqt) who has worked with coach Kaplan before
- an addition of a well-rounded player (Zellsis) who has been on Sentinels before, can play a wide variety of agents at a high level, and brings incredible energy to a team
- the new roster is better equipped for meta changes which the 2023 100T was not
they just beat multiple new good looking teams in the off season
- beat G2 twice (expected to be a top 5 NA team in 2024 season)
- beat PRX twice (2nd place at champions and also got beat with Jinggg in play)
- beat DRX (historically consistent top team at international tournaments and also expected to be top 3 in pacific 2024)
- beat Team Liquid (solid team all around)
Sentinels setting meta standards for maps
- Bind comp: Yoru, Raze, Skye, Viper, Brim
- Sunset comp: Omen, Raze, Fade, Cypher, Breach

Ultimately, I agree with FNS when he says the performance of Sentinels depends on how much they're able to innovate and improve their strats

#2

widepeepofrosty

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yea

#3

spectre300

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I agree with you that the main reason for 100T downfall was meta changes and sean gares departure and i don't think that would happen with SEN because they have better and more experienced players in my opinion and they are very flexible

#33

LifeIsALie

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ima save this link to come back and laugh at you

#38

spectre300

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too much effort bro it doesn't even matter

#40

danii1

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Why don't you just make your point now and try to say that 100T could (somehow) be better than SEN? You're acting like a pussy by doing this

#4

cartixuzi

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"the new roster is better equipped for meta changes which the 2023 100T was not"

you can't really claim this though rn, this roster was formed with the introduction of the current meta + some of their previous strats like their Bind comp have already existed. I feel like we're currently heading towards another drastic meta shift and the Gekko buff is just the start. If this happens then there's no guarantee whatsoever that SEN can switch up themselves to better suit the meta more than 100T ever did.

#6

BlueSLYR

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I feel like it's a reasonable claim to make solely based on the flexibility of the respective players. Sentinels currently have 4 players that can flex around multiple agents of different roles. zekken - has played a lot of agents at a high competitive level, johnqt - has played a lot of agents at a high competitive level, zellsis - has played a lot of agents at a high competitive level, tenz - is now in the process of expanding his agent pool to include more initiators and smokes. Comparatively speaking, you can't really say the same about 100T with the exception of maybe Asuna and Bang. The point I'd make is that even if we are headed toward another drastic meta shift, it would be easier for Sentinels to figure out given how flexible their team has become with the addition of 2 new very flexible players.

#12

cartixuzi

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What I'm talking about more is their gameplay overall to adapt to the current meta. Current aspects like site executes, teamplay, etc are either going to be heavily modified or scrapped entirely when a meta shift occurs. 100T didn't avoid the double controller stable because they weren't flexible enough, that comp was their go to for Icebox and Ascent ever since Lock In. They even ran it on Bind and Pearl during the Redbull Invite and have seen success with it.

The reason why they avoided it on other maps until it was too late was because of their belief that whatever they had then was already good enough and didn't need to see any risky changes. We have no room to believe in that SEN wouldn't be going in the same approach 100T did when another meta shift occurs at all.

#13

BlueSLYR

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Although I understand your point, I have a few points to counter:

I agree that aspects like site executes and teamplay (strats + comps in general) would change in a meta shift since it mostly changes the optimal agents compositions a team would play. But I would argue that if this were to occur, Sentinels could adapt to this change better than most team given their flexibility (keep in mind meta change doesn't just effect Sentinels).
I'd also argue that, although 100T ran double controller in the last season, they fell short in how well the managed to use the omen + viper comp on ascent + lotus and entirely failed to find success with harbor + viper on Pearl. I'm also arguing that it got awkward role wise whenever Derrek had to fill in the extra role when sova, fade, or breach wasn't needed.
I'd generally characterize 100T approach as more underperformance due to factors such as un-comfortability with comps (which goes back to the issue of adapting in general) + again lack of quality coaching but that's not really Mike's fault more so just circumstance

I agree with you that that there's always a possibility that Sentinels could just end up not making any changes to their strats and I do believe this would destroy the form we see them in now. But the comparative analysis between them and 100T leads me to believe they'll probably be a slightly different case.

#26

cartixuzi

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It honestly depends on how drastic the next meta shift is gonna be which we really can't speculate rn. We've never seen SEN prove to be consistent good at all as well on top of that, and just this year we were already given an example on how SEN (+zellsis +johnqt -pancada -dephh) approached a new meta which ended up being constant comp changes for maps even after wins as they scramble to find their place in the meta, until they went on to finally find actual stabilization in LCQ. In comparison to EG who've really shown no promise following the Americas League after just being done in by Talon Esports in LOCK//IN, the team had a great read on the meta early on and went on to better refine themselves and their stable comps somewhat just after Week 3 even through some strong losses.

I'm not saying off-season results dont matter of course, but I feel like we're overall undermining the effects a meta read can have on teams. What SEN has shown so far have been super promising, but we have to take into consideration that a lot of these ideas they have for the current meta have been in practice for a very long time now and brings no guarantee on how they can adapt to something new quickly enough during an ongoing tournament.

#28

BlueSLYR

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that's a fair point and I don't disagree

#8

Hyopic

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SEN currently has two flex players in TenZ (who has shown proficiency at 3 roles) and Zellsis (who has shown proficiency at all roles). Zekken is their duelist player and I doubt there will be a meta without duelists but he is also incredibly flexible, showing proficiency at all roles as well. JohnQT is proficient at sentinel, initiator and smokes (particularly viper but he has played other smokes before) and there will be no meta without initiator so sacy should be fine.

#5

Prontera

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Damn. U must be so free today. Like nothing to do at all..

#7

BlueSLYR

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doing homework at the same time. but I type pretty fast when I have a good idea of what I want to write so I decided to post this.

#9

Prontera

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Nice man.

#11

KRATOSmimir21

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tldr imo

100T failed cause during RBHG they had chamber, plus they got overrated as they didnt play teams that did well in vct either

SEN wont have a massive meta change like that, plus they beating actual top tier teams

#14

Tkdan

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100T got overrated because they defeated:

Heretics (#8 in EMEA)
VIT (#6 EMEA)
FUT (#3 EMEA, but placed badly in this event)
Liquid (without nAts and Redgar)
C9 (with yay)

C9 was favorite to win but they got somewhat glazed by having yay in the team, the best player of the year. He was still on Chamber, so that was a huge accomplishment for 100T, but it's the most relevant one we could get based on this off-season event. None of these other teams that maintained the same roster came to be huge or meta-definers, FUT was the most successful one but only after Lock/in did they get better.

Overall, people overreacted based on this event's performances, mainly because they hadn't seen most teams in the Americas (crucial teams like Optic and Loud only appeared first time in Lock/in) and the comparisons between regions were not so clear.

SEN's acomplishment beating two top 8 teams in Champions, beat the runner-up twice with the same old roster in some maps, is a bigger flex than taking down the team that has yay. Even thought these other teams weren't as prepared as SEN, both these teams are probably better than any of these 100T defeated. People WILL overreact based on this, but these new claims are stacked higher.

#15

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

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he's finally done it he actually reached the pinnacle of twitter level armchair analysis.

#16

BlueSLYR

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I prefer open discussion as opposed to armchair analysis. although as a fan of some content analysts I enjoy looking at the game in similar ways to them.

#18

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

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mf you aren't looking at the game the way an analyst does you're doing valorant astrology and hoping you're right.

#19

BlueSLYR

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You're correct in that my opinion is more speculation (valorant astrology) based on what we've seen. But to be clear when I mean "looking at the game in similar ways to them" in this particular case I mean I hold the same views regarding the importance of flexibility. In no way can I analyze the game to the degree of an actual professional analyst.

#20

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

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whatever u gotta tell yourself man i stg this website breeds delusion

#21

BlueSLYR

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I really don't think it's as deep as you're making it out to be. I'll concede that my post may be a little too in depth for me to make as an average viewer. I just figured it would be interesting to discuss with everyone as a topic. So I apologize if you're personally insulted by it. It wasn't my intention.

#27

Tooker

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To be fair, he's making educated guesses. He's using results, and comparing them to a similar example from last season. We won't know what will happen until the season, but it's not like he's just saying, SEN will do well because I like them.

#29

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

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if the entirety of your analysis can be achieved by simply reading post-match results then its not real analysis its magical thinking. None of his analysis has anything to do with how any team he mentions is actually playing the game hes literally just looking at the results and coming up with a conclusion based on that. That isn't analysis its what middle aged gambling addicts do to convince themselves the horse they bet on has to win.

#30

BlueSLYR

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I watched all their games but I think there's some misinterpretation of my post. The basis of what I'm trying to say is that I think Sentinels are in a better spot than 100T were last year because their players are flexible enough to adapt to a possible drastic meta shift. No post match results or stats from these games were needed for me to come to that conclusion. Nor was any analysis of their strat book or approach to various map needed (strats will prob change anyways since more teams have seen them). I promise you I'm not trying to be an analyst here lol. Again, apologies for causing you any annoyance but I just enjoy dialogue.

#17

doc_octavius

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hmmm

#22

Lailaic

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yeah now that i read that whole post I completely agree

#24

funny_prank

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💀

#25

BlueSLYR

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nice try pushes glasses up. but everyone knows chat gpt 3.5 was last updated January of 2022.

#31

Lailaic

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i just copy and pasted the post and asked it to summarize it, it didn't need any information past January of 2022

#36

BlueSLYR

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Oh I think I misinterpreted what you said

#23

SEN_FAN335

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also 100t's competition at homeground just wasn't that good lmao. all rosters were new, and they faced a liquid with subs.

#32

DeluluGavin

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how long did it take for you to finish this

#34

BlueSLYR

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5-8 minutes

#35

DeluluGavin

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oh wow. Nice work mate it was really interesting since I dont really keep up with Americas that much

#37

BlueSLYR

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Thanks, NA is an interesting region to talk about for sure.

#39

Trexx_Glazer

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G2 "top 5 NA" not a hard feat to pull off when there’s 6 NA teams in americas 💀 🗿