A loss for Sentinels at the hands of Gen.G sees the North American organization drop to the lower bracket final at Masters Madrid. Meeting them there is the Pacific’s Paper Rex who staved off elimination by beating Brazilian side LOUD.
Following their respective series, each side spoke to the media to give their thoughts on the upcoming match, the winner of which will move on to Sunday’s Grand Final against Gen.G.
Photo by Colin Young-Wolff
Alecks gives high praise for Zellsis and TenZ
Paper Rex coach Alecks was quick to praise his team’s upcoming opponent when asked for his thoughts on the matchup, calling SEN “very, very good” while highlighting PRX’s loss to them in the AfreecaTV VALORANT LEAGUE during the off season.
“You could tell that they’re developing. I think having Zellsis in the team is a big deal, I think he manages to keep their emotions high and confident. I think TenZ is playing amazing on smokes, I think it’s been a revelation for him.”
Read also: TenZ: If we can beat LOUD, we can beat anyone
“They’re coming together very nicely. I think it feels like when they first won Reykjavik, it feels like they’re coming back into their confidence. TenZ is having great performances. It’s just the same as last time. We’re looking forward to the game and we expect a very difficult one.”
He was later asked on the map pool heading into the series, admitting that: “We have one good map and I think the whole world knows this now.”
“I don’t think we’re playing Sunset. You never know… who knows? Maybe there are maps that they feel shaky on as well… we share a lot of maps that we like to play together, so there’s a good chance that we’re all going to get five maps that we like to play, regardless of how shaky our map pool is right now.”
Photo by Colin Young-Wolff
Kaplan to prioritize rest over last minute taktikz
On the other side of the matchup, Sentinels coach kaplan was quizzed on how he will prepare his team for the series with less than 24 hours until it begins, highlighting the need to rest and recharge after what’s been a very busy tournament.
“I think right now we are going to prepare by getting really good rest and making sure we come in in the right headspace tomorrow and make sure we take the approach to game day that’s worked best for us so far and trust that. So that probably means a little rest for all the guys and even a rest for myself and Drew [DrewSpark]. And yeah, I think we need to trust our own game tomorrow and just make sure we’re in the right headspace as a team and just lean into that.”
Photo by Colin Young-Wolff
“They’re going to be tired as well as us and there’s just not gonna be a lot of turnaround time to prepare for each other… So we’re just gonna make sure we get really good rest and get into the right confident, loose, fun-having head space we need to be at our best.”
Who do you have moving into the grand final? Paper Rex or Sentinels?
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