SEN coach kaplan discusses letting his guard down as coach and the team’s atmosphere

Sentinels are on their way to the VCT Americas Kickoff 2025 Grand Final. They'll take on G2 Esports after defeating MIBR in a best-of-five Lower Final. That guarantees coach Adam "kaplan" Kaplan and company qualification to Masters Bangkok.

The team has looked dominant all tournament long, except for that match against G2 in the Upper Final. So, before they face them in a rematch, we got to speak with the Sentinels coach on the team atmosphere and how they performed against MIBR.

"First off, congratulations on the win and qualifying for Masters Bangkok. It is looking a little reminiscent of last year. Do things feel similar in the Sentinels camp?"

kaplan: "Yeah, I think the stage consistency, finding out what kind of team we are on stage and how do we be ourselves on stage, right? I think that's harder than it was last year. Definitely at times it has felt more out of reach and a little harder to have confidence as a team than last year, because we had an off-season tournament win last year, before we got to Kickoff. So, building confidence has been harder, but obviously, we're getting there."

"Pretty clean wins on the maps you took. On Pearl, obviously, you guys brought it to overtime. Was that just MIBR finally getting warm or why do you feel that one was so close?"

kaplan: "This game is so momentum based and emotional. You throw and then you get frustrated, you're throwing and it just spirals. And the game's design is just made for that, right? The economy, the Ults, being able to resist the spiral is really hard and, obviously, a really hard thing for us. And we were just way too excited to close out the series on Pearl Defense and did an unbelievable amount of throwing.

"We were just totally tossing the half away and then at that point, by the later end of the half, they're flowing even if we're starting to find our footing. It was a really good game toward the end. I just think the first six or seven defense rounds, and a couple of OT rounds, we were a little too excited to go to Bangkok at the time, I guess."

"The rounds just kept going back and forth, like it was never going to end. You were holding onto that Cubert tight. In these high stress situations, is it nice to have something soft to squeeze like that instead of slamming the desk?"

kaplan: "Either squeeze or throw at the wall. You know, my go-to is the armrest. I still beat up the armrest a bit today, but there's definitely times where cuddling him has been helping out."

"In all seriousness, the team has played a lot of VALORANT this week, and still has plenty to go in the Grand Final. Was it frustrating, letting Pearl go that long and slip away, just to wrap it up in half the amount of rounds on Split? Or are you happy to have the reps in?"

kaplan: "It was frustrating. Absolutely. I would've preferred to have walked out of there. First of all, it's annoying to have to show more of our Split before a Grand Final, and G2 is just sitting there watching it. But also, you know, I'd like if we were just super clean.

"I'm going to find the angle to say it's a blessing in disguise. We started hot today, we've started cold a lot. We had really good energy finally, and confidence on stage today for what I think is actually really the first time as a team. Being able to throw Pearl and turn it back around so well on Split.

"It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good. It's nice to know, okay, maybe we can find our footing in the middle of series and after maps we lose. Whereas had we won Pearl, I think we would've just walked away going, cool, we can start hot and keep rolling, but did we learn how to turn things around when it gets bad? Can't say that yet, so."

"Well, we’ve seen a mix of teams moving in the direction of a new meta, such as Yoru taking over as the main Duelist and Tejo slotting in all over the place, and those with the ‘don’t fix it if it isn’t broken’ comps. Why was it important for SEN to set the standard of the early 2025 meta?"

kaplan: "It's pretty hard for teams, because the game changes so much and you're in the start of the season. So, you have to kind of work out team stuff and build fundamentals, and you can't do everything at once.

"My assistant coach Gunter, and I and johnqt, have all worked together for a long time. We really enjoy the game's strategy. We have a lot of confidence in figuring out metas early into patches and Agent releases and map releases.

"I think it's a clear strength of ours and we wanted to lean into it, and it's just fun for us. It's fun and it's part of what we do best. So, we knew we wanted to try to, because for us, it feels easy to try to comp diff and meta diff people. And I do think it worked really well.

"I think it got us across a lot of series, and some series where we weren't playing too pretty, but it also shows that our fundamentals and our micro and stuff like that, is still not there. And it's been hard to focus on everything at once, and it's just kind of like spinning plates. We're just going to try to stabilize and improve some of the basics because, you know, you've got work out all the muscle groups, right?"

"You mentioned johnqt in that. I was going to say, a lot of that might be credited to him. He's been doing amazing calling these games, swapping to the Initiator role to call within the pack this year. He’s also been great on Tejo. In your words, how has that allowed him to evolve as an in-game leader?"

kaplan: "I think it just makes things so much easier, right? Communication is going to break down. Sometimes the freeze times are really short in the game. People get in their heads and don't talk quite as much. You can maintain control over a tough game when you're the IGL in the pack, because you're seeing what's happening super regularly.

"When you are, IGLing from a lurk, you need to be able to understand what's going on in a different part of the map and have that information to call. And trying to consistently have someone accurately share all of that in a freeze time, and then think with it in the middle of a freeze time, it's completely unrealistic.

"It's unbelievably hard. And for those who don't have the firsthand experience as a player or coach, I think that's hard to grasp, but I really can't emphasize it enough. I think it's near impossible to be the best team in the world with a Sentinel IGL."

"Now tell me about Zellsis today. We thought we'd see the zekken vs. aspas show. But it was Zellsis going nuts, fragging out all day long. Was he just super hyped up and ready to go with this one?"

kaplan: "He was locked in. He wasn't even like full hype Jordan. He was like locked in, like a silent killer. It was cool, and I hadn't seen it from him much before. He's such a confidence player. When he allows himself to take a risk or two, and make a play, he just thrives.

"And I think what we've learned the hard way this tournament is, it's everyone's team. Everyone's a leader. Everyone needs to be responsible for the team's energy and chip in. You can't say, oh, that's person X and Y's job, and that's it.

"That's just not how it works. And that's all that mattered between our loss yesterday and our win today. I think everyone did a really good job chipping in today. I think he did a good job making room for it, and it's also a testament to how good of a player he is when he's not trying to bear all the responsibility of the team's atmosphere.

"He is a really incredible player and, and he doesn't get enough credit. I's hard to carry a team's energy on your shoulders and play well all at once. And today we got to see what Jordan can do when the team is willing to share the burden of the atmosphere."

"That leads me right into my next topic. The team atmosphere. We all saw your chat with N4RRATE after the LOUD series. When he was down on himself and you helped him come out of that. VALORANT is competitive as all hell. It can probably be pretty taxing mentally with how wins and losses can go. As a coach, you’re not just there to yell at your guys and whip them into shape with practice and drills. Tell me about the balance you have to find with that alongside being a mentor figure or even a friend if they need one."

kaplan: "Yeahh, it's hard. It is a really hard balance to hit, but I think it's very important. I think people look at sports a lot, like this person's leading 50 people on a team. They're the coach. They're not supposed to be seen in a certain light. It's almost like seeing your teacher outside of school.

"It's like, wait, what? They're actually a person? I don't think that really applies. And I think to me, it's really important as a coach that you let your guard down and be yourself. It's an incredibly emotional job and you care a lot and you're going to feel a lot of emotions about it.

"You're going to work 60 hours a week with people who you're going to be confrontational and arguing and everything. You just need to be true to your emotions. I try to lead by example with that. I'm very transparent and open and honest with my own emotions and struggles with the team.

"I really enjoy that. I think N4RRATE does a great job at that. I think it's inspiring and it is reassuring, how hard he works, and I'm very proud of him for the vulnerability he's willing to have on a day-to-day basis in this work."

"Well, lastly, G2 is up next. It wasn’t pretty in the Upper Final, but we always hear about how difficult it can be to win a rematch, to take down a team two times in a row in such a short timeframe. How does it being a rematch, and a best-of-five this time, favor Sentinels?"

kaplan: "That's a good question. We have struggled with the team vibes on stage. Obviously, it's very apparent to anyone. We showed how well we can wrangle it today. I think G2 are a team who have been together for a long time, mine Jawgemo, so they're probably pretty comfortable in tough spots.

"But they haven't been in one in a while, right? It's been very easy matches for them. I hope we can give them a hard enough match that they can get tested, and maybe they're a little rusty. VALORANT is a very different game when you're four or five maps into a series. It's much more about the emotions and the atmosphere and being able to control things.

"So, hopefully, I think if we get them there, we have a chance at at winning. I think strategically, I'll be blunt, they look great and we've shown a bunch, and they've gotten to rest today, and we don't have much to work with here. and they get two map bans. It's not easy, but I think we can do it and I'm going to be working all night trying to make it happen too, to get ready."

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