Sentinels have finally bolstered their coaching staff with an analyst, just ahead of the VCT NA Last Chance Qualifier in August.
Stats guru Matt “Weltis” Liu will be joining head coach Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty in getting the retooled roster in shape for the upcoming LCQ.
Weltis’s signing comes a month after the organization said that it was looking for two strategic analysts.
After the bombshell addition of Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek and former Version1 player Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, all eyes will be on the team as they attempt to qualify for Valorant Champions.
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Weltis joins Sentinels as an analyst
Weltis has been a source of several eye-opening statistics in the VCT over the past months. From graphs that shed light on team performances in specific scenarios to new ways to interpret player value, Weltis has become a mainstay among Valorant stats gurus.
In the group stage at Masters Copenhagen, he teased out a new statistic dubbed “true” first kills, defined as an opening kill that is not traded within three seconds and therefore creates a true advantage.
At the time, the players that ranked the highest were Northeption’s Kim “Meteor” Tae-O, DRX’s Goo “Rb” Sang-min, and XERXIA Esports’ Thanachart “Surf” Rungapajaratkul.
Sentinels will need all the help they can get — in a recent stream, in-game leader Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan even described Weltis as their “secret weapon.” The team missed out on both Masters events this year, going 0-5 in the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers group stage, where they only managed to win one map in their opener against the then Luminosity Gaming roster.
The team also had to play three games without Hunter “SicK” Mims, while star player Tyson “TenZ” Ngo also missed the Week 3 match against OpTic Gaming after coming down with COVID-19.
Sentinels are now bootcamping in Texas as they work to iron out the kinks in their new roster. The competition at the VCT NA LCQ will be stiff — teams like The Guard, Cloud9, 100 Thieves, and NRG Esports are in attendance, but only one can make it to Valorant Champions.
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