by The Sentinels have completed their roster ahead of the 2023 Valorant Champions Tour with Hunter “SicK” Mims signing on.
The 24-year old will return as the sixth man in the new starting line-up after spending five months on the bench.? ?The North American franchise had earlier teased that they would not be fielding a sixth man in their lineup ahead of the VCT 2023 season.
This left some fans wondering why the franchise had resorted to such a decision, while others reinstated their confidence in the five-man roster, stating that a sixth man is not needed.?
?“Competitive Update: We will not be fielding a 6th man on our roster for the upcoming VCT 2023 season,” the teaser update read.? ?
An hour later, they proceeded to announce the return of SicK in an official update as the “SicKth” man.? ?
“We’re gonna have a SICKTH man,” the official release read.?
?“The secret weapon returns @SicK_cs.”?
?The Sentinels underwent a full team rebuild around their superstar Valorant player TenZ after a poor outing in the 2022 VCT season.
Despite fielding some surprising stand-in performances from Michael “shroud” Grzesiek and Jordan “Zellis” Montemurro, the franchise failed to make it out of the VCT 2022: North America Last Chance Qualifier and, as such, were absent at the VALORANT Champions 2022.? ?
In the course of their rebuild, the franchise were forced to part ways with Eric “Kanpeki” Xu and proceeded to move Michael “dapr” Gulino and?Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan to the inactive roster as they have no intention of renewing their contracts.? ?
They parted ways with head coach Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty and signed on Don “SyykoNT” Muir from XSET as his replacement. The Sentinels also recruited Ghost Gaming coach Adam “kaplan” Kaplan as the team’s strategic coach.? ?
Two days after joining Sentinels, SyykoNT brought in zekken and more recently added dephh to the roster. Both players being former members of his successful work at XSET reassures fans that the Sentinels could go all the way in the upcoming season.
The team also procured the services of World Champions with the inclusion of two of LOUD’s players, Sacy and pANcada.? ?
SicK will join Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, Zachary “zekken” Patrone, Gustavo “Sacy” Rossi, Bryan “pANcada” Luna, and in-game leader Rory “dephh” Jackson in the capacity of the primary substitute role.
With SicK back in the line-up, he becomes the last player from the original Sentinels roster from the summer of 2020.? ?Although he was part of the Sentinels’ roster upon their entry into the Valorant scene in 2020, SicK was on the sidelines for most of the 2022 season.
Due to a family emergency, SicK was subbed out of a VCT match and a month later announced that he would be taking a break in a bid to protect his mental health.? ?
His return has fans in a frenzy as they look forward to the new Sentinels roster’s performance in the VCT 2023 Kickoff event set to be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in February.
