“EMEA is now a No-Team Region” Sentinels take down both EMEA representatives to qualify for VALORANT Masters Madrid Playoffs

After shattering Team Heretics in their opening game at Madrid, Sentinels faced a tricky second opponent in Karmine Corp. The reigning VCT EMEA Kickoff champions have proven themselves one of the strongest teams in the world after taking down Fnatic to qualify for Madrid.

This is the first time both current iterations of the roster have faced off against one another and it proved to be a challenging test for the time-pressed Sentinels. They had just come off a 3-map series the night before, and with less than 19 hours of downtime, they were back on the server again, facing off against EMEA’s no.1 seed.

Sentinels 2-0 Karmine Corp

Sentinels struck the first blow on Split, going up 5-1 before a serious reply from Karmine. Their dominant tempo spearheaded by Zekken and TenZ shattered Karmine’s looser defense several times before the French side were able to reply. After some swift adjustments, Karmine was able to equalize the score to 6-6 heading into the second half, with strong heroics from their members playing an especial part.

On defense however, Sentinels ran away with a stalwart defense, shutting down all Karmine’s attempts with stellar retakes that saw them close out Split comfortably 13-8.

Asking Karmine for their input on Sentinel’s pacing during the series, Magnum had this to say:

I don’t think it was like that. Again, I think we just lost to ourselves. I think a lot of rounds were on me. Yeah, and it’s […] it’s just how we handled the stress in the match, and I think today was like, a bad day for us in terms of handling the stress. And we just didn’t play well as a team in some rounds. Our comms were very hectic and some rounds, especially the ones which we lost, and it is what it is. Like, nothing to do.

Heading into Karmine’s pick of Lotus, the map looked a lot closer, despite Sentinels putting up a decent attack half, ending the half with a close 7-5 scoreline in favor of Sentinels.

While Karmine managed to pull off heroic round saves, Sentinels managed to close out the map 13-11, shutting down EMEA’s representative in convincing fashion.

Speaking on their path thus far, and the level of opponents they have had to defeat to reach where they are now, both Zellsis and Sacy had their opinions on it:

Zellsis opted for a cheekier response:

I mean, EMEA is a no-team region now. So, you know, we can go back and go hom to Americas happy. But no, in all seriousness, I mean, we knew […] we knew EMEA was going to be really tough, like they’re a really good region. And yeah, like you said, we didn’t have the easiest road and I mean, it honestly at this point, it doesn’t matter now if we get the easy road or not, I think we’ve put so much time in, in the off-season and like, even now playing through Play-ins and Kickoff and everything, like I feel like our team is really prepared for like anything that’s thrown at us.

Sacy was more diplomatic about it however:

So, I mean, yeah. For me, it’s like, no it doesn’t matter if it’s EMEA or Pacific, we’re not, we’re not here to win against EMEA, we’re here to win Masters. So, whatever.

Sentinels have qualified for VCT Masters Madrid Playoffs. Whereas Karmine Corp will play Paper Rex today. You can follow Valorant Champions Tour X/Twitter for all updates on the upcoming fixture. You can also follow Strafe for upcoming fixtures, press conference coverage and more.

Follow the Strafe App YouTube for all the upcoming VALORANT Masters Madrid Press conferences.

Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

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