Sentinels beat PRX 3-1 to qualify for Grand Finals

One day after falling to Gen.G Gen.G Korea Rank #2 Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Meteor Kim Tae-O (김태오) Lakia Kim Jong-min (김종민) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태) in the Upper Finals of Champions Tour 2024: Masters Madrid, Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #2 TenZ Tyson Ngo Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid Sacy Gustavo Rossi regained their form to beat Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov 3-1 and qualify for their first grand finals since 2021.

Despite losing to Gen.G yesterday, Sentinels remain confident going into tomorrow's Grand Finals.

“The Sentinels we showed yesterday weren't the real us, so if we bring the proper form, it will be a good match to watch,” Sacy said of the upcoming rematch.

zekken and TenZ were in peak form in today's match, with Zekken contributing 88 kills across only 4 maps, and Tenz providing 73 of his own to go along with 45 assists. Just one day after a poor showing from the two, it was only fitting that they would be the ones to lead SEN to victory.

On the opening map of Lotus, Sentinels looked to get off to a hot start after their loss yesterday. After jumping ahead 4-0 on their defensive side, Sentinels let a few rounds slip away and found themselves down 5-4. After a few back-and-forth rounds, the opening half finished knotted at 6-6.

Zekken, Tenz, and others were showing their star power on the opening map, consistently fragging and finding multi-kill rounds. PRX got off to a good start on their defensive side, going ahead 8-6, but Sentinels quickly made it 8-8.

With the score 12-10, Paper Rex won an important round on a light-buy to cut the score to 12-11. Paper Rex would also win the final round, sending the game into overtime. After playing rounds at a much slower pace in regulation, the pace was quickly picked up by both teams. While ahead 13-12, Sentinels baited a fight into spawn to take a man advantage and were able to convert on the round win, giving them the map 14-12.

Zekken once again found a 30-kill map this season, with his partner in crime TenZ coming in with 25. The real story for Zekken was his eight first kills to only four first deaths.

Onto Ascent, PRX looked to even the score on their own map pick. After once again losing pistol and bonus, Sentinels found themselves ahead 4-2, thanks to a Zekken 4K in the second round of the map.

After a thrifty and a few more round wins for PRX, PRX went ahead 5-4. At the half, the two teams saw a 6-6 scoreline for the second straight map.

On the attacking side for Sentinels, it was once again the Zekken and TenZ show. Coming into this map, Sentinels were 1-7 on Jett maps so far this season. After once again winning pistol and bonus, Sentinels never let PRX get an Operator on their defensive side and snowballed six straight rounds to make the score 12-6.

In the final round of the map, it was TenZ coming through with the final kills after lurking through spawn and clutching the last two kills with one-taps to once again take the map win for Sentinels.

TenZ found four first kills playing Omen, and Zekken posted an eye-popping 351 ACS, once again leading the way for Sentinels.

After looking weak on Ascent this season, Sentinels found their form to put themselves one map away from the grand finals.

On Split, which some would say has been “Sentinels Playground,” it was all Monyet and PRX with a dominating performance. After going ahead 2-0, PRX found themselves in a 4v1 against Zellsis in the third round. An amazing clutch from Zellsis led to Sentinels only finding themselves down 2-1.

Ahead 5-4, PRX consistently found impact kills in the closing three rounds of the half to give themselves a comfortable 8-4 lead going into their preferred attacking side.

Once again winning pistol and bonus, a 10-4 PRX lead seemed insurmountable for Sentinels. After stealing a round and looking to close their deficit to only four, Sentinels were in a 5v3 and looked in position to win the round. Monyet, however, had other ideas, finding an ace to give PRX an 11-5 lead.

PRX was able to win the last two rounds and take the map 13-5 behind 24 kills and a 340 ACS from Monyet.

Down 2-1 and facing elimination, PRX looked to even the score on Sunset and send the series to a fifth and deciding map. After trading the opening four rounds, the score was tied 2-2.

From that point on, it was all Sentinels on their way to the Grand Finals. Behind a 1.91 rating from Tenz, they would win 11 of the next 12 rounds to dominate PRX 13-3 on the final map of the game.

Up 12-3, it was only fitting that TenZ would find himself in a 1v1 to send Sentinels into an international grand finals. After planting the spike, Tenz waited until the last possible second to eliminate mindfreak and clinch the series for Sentinels.

“I'm really excited to be able to rematch them tomorrow, I know they're gonna shoot back like they always do. I'm just happy to be here,” Zekken said of the looming rematch with Gen.G.

While Sentinels will be at the disadvantage tomorrow after coming from the lower bracket, kaplan , the team's head coach, was at least able to look at the bright side of things. “Tomorrow we don't even get a ban, so there's not a lot of decisions to be made,” Kaplan said. “So I can kick back knowing that.”

PRX is eliminated from Masters Madrid and will get ready for the APAC regular season. Sentinels advance to tomorrow's Grand Finals against Gen.G.