TenZ And Friends: Statistics Show Sentinels' Reliance On TenZ
Having been so successful in the opening stages of the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour, winning the game's first international LAN, the expectations behind the Sentinels roster are always skye-high. However, a string of poor results has led fans to search for problems in their quintet, with the finger-pointing normally directed to anybody but their star man Tyson "TenZ" Ngo.
The golden child of Sentinels' roster is often branded as the best player in the world, leading opposing fans to come up with an alternative name for the Sentinels team, which comes as a jibe that grinds the teeth of any long-time fans of the organisation.
Now, much to the dismay of Sentinels fans, 'TenZ and Friends' has become a reality, and there is data to back up the claims.
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Statistics Show Sentinels Are Actually Tenz And Friends
Having seen the term 'TenZ and Friends' thrown around Sentinels trash talk threads, statistics have now emerged to back up the claims. Data-hot VALORANT enthusiast, Matt Liu, found that Sentinels' performances were a stark contrast to their usual standards when TenZ was playing poorly, compared to other rosters that can pool together as a team even when their star man is off the boil.
Liu found that throughout the VCT NA Challengers Stage 1, when TenZ was performing at less than 275 ACS (Average Combat Score, a method of calculating effectivity in games combined through kills, deaths, assists, and utility usage), Sentinels only won 17% of their maps. Out of 12 maps where TenZ slipped into a below-average standard, Sentinels only won twice.
Compared to the teams who qualified for the VCT Stage 1 Masters, The Guard had a 60% map win rate when their primary duelist Ha "Sayaplayer" Jung-woo dipped below 275 ACS, and similar numbers were found for OpTic Gaming with Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker (58%) and Version1 with Erik "penny" Penny (53%).
VALORANT's duelists are often table-toppers in the ACS charts, and when they are not 'popping off' teams such as Sentinels have struggled to adapt. Their 17% win rate without TenZ entering 'god mode' is the lowest in the top eight NA teams from Challengers 1, leaving fans to question why a Plan B has not been put into action.
Sentinels recently released their Head Coach Shane "Rawkus" Flaherty, who joined FaZe Clan after just three months with the side, which could also contribute to their lack of tactical diversity.
They aren't the only strugglers though. TenZ's pick for the best player in Europe is also facing troubles this season, competing against sides with much stronger team compositions. Acend's Mehmet "cNed" Yağız İpek has seen his team dip from World Champions to a tenth place finish in the most recent Challengers, as the evolution of VALORANT continues to benefit the likes of Fnatic and M3 Champions (previously Gambit).
Should Sentinels look to overcome their woes going into Stage 2, their captain Shahzeb "ShahZam" Khan will need to pull out a playbook that brings together this band of individual rebels before their early promise looks like nothing more than a honeymoon period.
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