New blood The Guard are definitely making a name for themselves in the 2022 VCT Challengers Stage 1 tournament. Emerging as the second seed from Group A, suffering a loss only to Cloud9, The Guard are hungry to prove themselves in the playoffs stage. Now, they have executed a clinical 2-0 victory over Sentinels (SEN) — who used to be far and away NA's top team — in the quarterfinals round of the VCT Challengers Playoffs, here's how they did it according to Trent “trent” Cairns in an interview with ClutchPoints.
Trent also shared that the team was confident going into the matchup and was convinced they would come out the winners, despite Sentinels' historically being the top team in NA. The 17-year-old star highlighted that once they saw the map picks, The Guard had already felt almost sure of the victory.
“We knew we were going to win. We've been practicing a lot, putting in the work to prepare comps on different maps and studying our opponents, so we're happy to be able to show it [on stage],” he shared.
Even going up against Sentinels on their opponents' best map, where SEN had a close to 90 percent win rate, Trent and his team were unfazed. Indeed, on Bind, trent himself put up a stellar performance on Skye, recording 24 kills and a 327 ACS. The Guard were on the offensive from the get-go, and made use of their flashes well to clear out and deny space from SEN as they charged through. Sentinels on their part struggled as they couldn't match the blinds, relying on Viper and Raze util that The Guard were quite easily able to deal with.
“We looked at they're (SEN's) strats just because they've been so good on that map, but we also prepared some of our own [setups],” he said. “It was important for us to communicate with each other a lot, to hype each other up but also to keep ourselves focused. When you're really in the zone and focused on the game like that, you're going to win.”
After stunning SEN (quite literally) on Bind, 13-6, The Guard didn't let their opponents gain any sort of momentum to try and bounce back in the series. Their next map was an even more dominant performance on Icebox. Just like on Bind, The Guard won the two pistol rounds. Sentinels then grabbed the third round, but that was the only thing they were allowed to get.
Relatively, trent had a more subdued performance on Sova, but he did his job to scout for information and help set up the rest of his team to wipe out the opponents—and we all know how important good util and setup are for Icebox especially. Sayaplayer had highlight reel after highlight reel on Jett, complemented by JonahP's clean and strategic Omen play.
The Guard were also one of the first pro teams to pick Icebox with the new map changes in place. They had banned it initially in their series against Cloud9 last week in the final group stage matchup. When asked about the sudden pivot to pick it this time around, trent gave due credit to their coach Matthew “mCe” Elmore.
“He's a big Omen fan so he helped us prepare a lot of tricks and strats that we could use on Icebox,” he explained. Indeed all that prep work paid off. In an absolute dismantling of the previous Masters Reykjavik champs, The Guard put on a clinic and shut down Sentinels completely, 13-1.
Despite coming fresh off a statement victory against SEN, trent remains levelheaded about the team's performance and where they stand overall in the NA VALORANT scene. Regarding where he ranks The Guard now among the top teams, trent said, “I think we are a top five team. Cloud9, Version1, and OpTic—those teams are still above us, just because they're more structured. We're still a young team, but we're improving and we'll get there.”
Looking ahead, The Guard now progress to the semifinals round of the VCT playoffs, where Luminosity Gaming await them after pulling off a massive upset over top-seeded Version1 earlier today. When these two teams met in the group stage, The Guard had come away with a convincing 2-0 series, so trent says they “aren't too worried about them” and he has faith that his team can work together to secure the victory and make it far in the brackets.
“As long as we stay composed, stay levelheaded, and focus on our game, we'll be able to win,” trent concluded.
Meanwhile, Sentinels drop to the lower bracket where they must face Version1, who also had their number during the group stage. Both teams will be looking to bounce back after a loss, and SEN perhaps more so because of how easily The Guard had taken care of business. Our coverage of the VCT Challengers Stage 1 playoffs continues tomorrow, March 19, for the semifinals rounds between Cloud9 and OpTic, and The Guard and Luminosity.
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