If you didn't see the loss coming I think you're delusional.
After the NRG loss, I genuinely thought this team was done. No amount of Kaplan magic or zekken 1v5s can save a team when they are just not on the level of other teams overall. Whether it be due to lacking form in individuals, or teamplay cohesion, or a lack of strategic depth when Kaplan isn't spoonfeeding them the answers in timeouts, this team just wasn't on the level of everyone around them when it mattered. NRG is not a bad team by any means, and they showed it by their 2-0 run and incredible mental fortitude, but the difference in raw gunplay between the two is not all that incredible. Zekken is even or slightly better than Mada, and they are both 2 of the best duelists in the world, narrate should be better than brawk, zellsis is worse than ethan, bang should be a bit worse than s0m, and johnqt is a bit worse than skuba. These aim diffs are not that significant, and should lead to Sen winning matches against them or at least bringing it very very close. However, when it mattered against NRG or G2, they weren't able to do that, regardless of what reason they give.
Sen, for the entire year has not actually played against real competition, and when they have, they crumple. When the game matters, and their life is on the line, the old sen stepped up to the plate to face the challenge because they had players like Sacy, Tenz, and Zekken all there, and Zellsis and John stepped up and were elevated in igling and calling with them. This year, and I say this as someone who has been cheering for Bang since 2022 100T, so a while now, Bang and narrate are just not those guys. I wanted to see if I was just blinded from this match, so I went to see all of Bang's elimination games from tourneys (or grand finals) and find his vlr rating for them. Disregarding Shanghai (no vlr rating, so I couldn't include it but if you go back his stats are horrifying), whenever the tournament life is on the line, Bang just does not perform. Whether this be to stress, or some aspect inside or outside of the game, Bang in 9 series since 2022 is at a 0.89 VLR rating averaged on matches that determine whether you stay in a tournament or not. N4rrate, as much as the community (and I) give him praise, was completely offline today. Especially in games in which Sen can't just aim diff their opponents, n4rrate goes from a god to having 1 good map and falling off the face of the earth. I don't know why this is the case. I genuinely can't point to anything but a mental block because the drop in quality of play from abyss to the other 2 maps was insane. Even on Abyss, they were doing the classic "lets see if zekken can dash into a site alone while we watch him and don't follow up", but it was working because of n4rrate firing in the mid-late rounds. I don't know what it is, but I think this map 1 drop off again has to point to a mental thing, because there's no way his hands just magically became cold from map 1-2/3.
I also want to point at the way this team is built, specifically pointing out how they use zekken, and the team that's built around them. I have absolutely 0 qualms with Zekken entrying, and obviously as a jett/raze/neon you should be doing that. My problem comes with how uncoordinated, or disgustingly bait-y the rest of the team plays around the man who is literally their star. This IS their aspas and their mada and their kk, and whenever I watch a Sen attack side I am constantly throwing my hands up watching Zekken go in with the team's util, and then get shot in the back of the head or some angle that isn't cleared because his team just straight up doesn't take space with him.
This is one thing that I thought Sen 2024 did INCREDIBLY well compared to Sen 2025. The classic Tekken duo of Tenz tping in or flashing in on Kayo with the zekken entry on raze or jett or neon lead to them both covering each others backs, and being able to make trades to leave one of their win conditions alive for the postplant, as well as take space and make really good trades to win sites. Alongside them, they also had Sacy, someone who was very intelligent with his peeks and positioning, and walked in at the perfect moments with his 2 entries to take timings and confirm the space that got created. On this team, just watch the way they used Zekken on abyss attack. I felt like banging my head against a wall with the amount of times I'd see Zekken dash in into a smoke, with a recon that gets shot, and bang and narrate would both be sitting behind a smoke just waiting for zekken to die before doing anything, and often just letting zekken give his life for nothing. Whether it's miscommunication, or some other issue entirely, this is a consistent thing that I noticed throughout all of Sen 2025, and I got mad about it every time, thinking: "How are we letting the best player on our team go in, get so much space for us, and give it back up because we don't want to walk up?".
Now, getting into how this team is built at its core. When watching Sen 2024, we were gifted, and obviously didn't realize how much Tenz and Sacy did for the team, but one of the biggest pieces here of why their team worked was because of how the burden of kills/deaths were put onto each of their players. I took a look at the Kills/Death percentages to try to see some insight into how that team functioned versus this new version of Sen, as I think we can all agree that they're trying to replicate the formula but something isn't clicking.
In their madrid run, the K/D breakdown was as follows:
Zekken: 381 - 25.4% / 314 - 21.86%
Tenz: 314 - 20.9% / 300 - 20.89%
JohnQT: 293 - 19.5% / 251 - 17.47%
Zellsis: 263 - 17.5% / 282 - 19.6%
Sacy: 249 - 16.6% / 289 - 20.1%
At champs, the K/D breakdown was as follows:
Zekken: 323 - 25.84% / 275 - 22.5%
Tenz: 271 - 21.68% / 251 - 20.5%
Sacy: 222 - 17.76% / 247 - 20.23%
Zellsis: 220 - 17.6% / 236 - 19.3%
JohnQT: 214 - 17.12% / 212 - 17.3%
I think you can absolutely see the difference in form in John being one of the many reasons why they won Madrid but weren't able to bring home the Champs trophy, but another thing to note is how many kills Zekken is getting, with Tenz being there to clean up and go in with him and the other 3 playing to support the 2 going in. John clearly has a lot less deaths due to the fact that he is playing as a senti-clutch player, playing to get space around the map and playing for the clutch. Alongside this, Madrid JohnQT was a demon, and he did fall off a bit in form into champs which could be why their style didn't work as well. Now, let's compare this with Sen 2025.
I'm not going to be counting Bangkok or Toronto because the way their team played with the tejo/john init was completely different than how they play now.
Champs K/D percentage:
Zekken: 94 - 23.9% / 100 - 22.77%
JohnQT: 85 - 21.6% / 75 - 17.0%
n4rrate: 79 - 20.1% / 91 - 20.72%
Zellsis: 68 - 17.3% / 88 - 20%
Bang: 67 - 17.0% / 85 - 19.36%
Americas K/D percentage (when Kaplan said they could win champs in this form):
Zekken: 355 - 23.15% / 300 - 22.17%
n4rrate: 332 - 21.66% / 283 - 20.92%
Bang: 289 - 18.85% / 265 - 19.59%
Zellsis: 281 - 18.33% / 271 - 20.03%
JohnQT: 276 - 18% / 234 - 17.29%
When Sen was successful, Zekken was dying less because he wasn't having to solo entry every single round, and because of that was able to frag a lot higher. 23%s vs 25% of kills, and the death % being increased by even a few percentage points is exactly due to how Sen has built their attack sides. I also want to point out that Bang/n4rrate were brought in to fix the hole by Sacy's comms with just fragging, but something is missing there from Bang, where he just is not putting up numbers, especially at champs where he just had an absolutely horrific tournament. I don't know what the fix here is, but maybe a mental coach could help. Or just sign Cryo from 100T because he been the truth :P
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