“It’s just another game that slipped away from us is all,” 100T stellar on the close Week 1 defeat to Sentinels

VCT Americas kicked off with Sentinels vs. 100 Thieves. In hindsight, it was the perfect match to start the league. It went the distance with three close matches that set the standard fans will expect from every other series. Following the incredible contest, esports.gg spoke with 100T IGL Brenden "stellar" McGrath.

100 Thieves came out on the losing end, but they looked poised to change the outcome throughout the entire match. It was truly that close. Stellar let it be known that the victory seemingly slipped out of their grasp in the post-match it interview.

"Despite the outcome, you had the honor of competing in the very first VCT Americas match, which is also the first time a VCT event in NA has had fans in the crowd. Was there any added pressure to set the bar high?"

stellar: "I don't think there was any pressure at all, or not as much as most people would think. It was kind of just another match. I mean, we've been to three LANs now in the last few months, so we've kind of gotten that stage out of the way. It's just another game that slipped away from us is all."

"The league is obviously very different than LOCK//IN. You've got a couple months ahead of you against the best NA, LATAM, and Brazil have to offer. How does the team prep for a lengthy league like this as opposed to a one-off tournament?"

stellar: "Since it's a match every week, I think the first few weeks will be pretty similar to preparing for those kind of early stage tournaments, like LOCK//IN. As the season progresses, then there's going to be a lot more of us doing homework on other teams. Anti-strats and doing research, since you have an entire week to prepare or anywhere from like four to five days, usually depending on when you play.

"That's the only difference. You have a lot more time to prepare for the teams you get to play. This first week, obviously we couldn't. The second week, we probably won't be able to either, but I think from third week going forward, we'll be able to start having good preparation for the teams we're playing."

"With Sentinels' performance at LOCK//IN and some of the talk about their players being on roles that don't really fit them, did 100 Thieves happen to underestimate them at all?"

stellar: "No, I think every expectation was met. I think we were in control of the game pretty much the entire time. Obviously, on Fracture, I think we lost like the last six rounds or something to lose the map, but we were in control up until that point. On Ascent, the last like four or five rounds got out of our hands, same thing, we were already winning, so we kind of knew what to expect. There were maybe just some really small details that we missed out on late into the game that really caught us off guard."

"Things started with two extremely close maps, as both teams took their own picks. When it comes to Sentinels game plan, is there anything you noticed that worked well against you?"

stellar: "They ran their plan and in the rounds that we kind of gave them the space to do the things that they wanted to do, those were the rounds that they won. I think every time that we either were disrupting or playing a little bit more aggressive, they didn't look super amazing. I mean obviously, they won. Great team, but I think we definitely lost ourselves."

"And what did you find exploitable against them?"

stellar: "It depends on the map, right? I think every single map it took us maybe just a few rounds to kind of figure out what they were doing or how they liked to play. For example, on Fracture, they were kind of grouping like the same people in the same areas and then they would stack sites a certain way. Same thing on Split, they kind of played the same way on their defense every round. It's just tiny things that we figured out pretty early on every single map."

"The series then ended on Ascent where we saw you select Viper, which is rare to see on that map. Is this something you think we'll see more commonly overall or would you consider it sort of your specialty?"

stellar: "Um, I don't know yet. It was kind of a newer comp. We've been practicing it for two weeks or something. I wouldn't say it's super common. At least in NA, I haven't seen it a ton, but you know, we'll see where it goes."

"What about Viper do you feel works well on Ascent rather than picking perhaps Killjoy, Cypher, or even another Controller Agent?"

stellar: "If you're playing the right way around it, I think Viper's definitely one of the strongest characters out currently, and has been for a while. She's definitely one of the most consistent. So I think that's why we're leaning towards it. It's always something we wanted to try and it was proving to be working for a while.

"And then, like I said, the last few rounds kind of slipped out of our hands, but we'll see. We have some other stuff on Viper that we want to try that we didn't get to. So, you know, who knows, maybe we'll keep playing it. Maybe we won't."

"At the end of the day, things really looked like they could have gone either way based on just a few key moments. From your perspective, what would you say was the one deciding factor that put Sentinels over 100 Thieves to start VCT Americas?"

stellar: "Honestly, I have no idea. I think they got some good rounds in that we probably should have won and that's sometimes all takes. Just a few of those rounds and that's all it was."

"And of course, the generic final question. What are you going to do, what do you need to do, what do you want to do, all of that good stuff, to bounce back after a Week 1 defeat?"

stellar: "Yeah, I think we just keep practicing how we have been. I think we will review this footage and learn from some of our mistakes. Then focus on those really tiny details and hopefully we'll be able to look better next week."

Good luck to 100 Thieves throughout the rest of VCT Americas. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more esports news and the very best in VALORANT coverage.