SEN Johnqt: "I will be the team captain at ENC, leading the Moroccan team for VALORANT"

After a rocky start and roster changes, Sentinels kicked off Stage 1 of the VCT Americas with a loss to KRÜ Esports. It was a frustrating setback for the North American team, which had hoped to start this new stage on a better note. After the match, Mohammed Amine “johnqt” Ouarid shared his thoughts in a post-match interview with Sheep Eports on the game, as well as how he experienced this transition marked by his return to the role of IGL, and more topics.

Mohammed Amine “JohnQT” Ouarid: “Sad that we lost, but I've missed playing on stage a lot, and I wish we had gone to map 3 to play more. It's been a while since I played on stage, and I missed the feeling. I feel like this series was very winnable. Made a lot of mistakes playing with the sub. It's not ideal. We played with Victor (Victor Wong) since Monday, so it’s been like four days of practice with the sub, and it was really close.

JohnQT: I guess we had a bad Kickoff, and overall, it felt like we weren't really progressing. Management thought it wasn't the right path, and even the solutions, I guess. They didn't think this was the right path, or the solutions weren't there. The players kind of felt the same. I don't think it was a player issue. It was just that it wasn't a well-constructed roster overall.

So it was a disservice to everyone. Even for Kyu (Mirel Braco Hrustemovic) and N4RRATE (Marshall Massey), I don't think they had a fair chance because of the roster. There was just a lack of a lot of things. So the roster build didn't make much sense. And yeah, we felt like we needed some changes. Finishing 10th is not something Sentinels want to do. And obviously, the org has always been very successful. So it was kind of an emergency change. And yeah, we're here.

JohnQT: I mean, personally, I don't really think I can talk about upgrades or anything, to be honest. I feel like it's kind of mean and a disservice to the previous people who worked on the team. It's just a different look. I think Ewok (Marthinus Jacobus Van Der Wal), JonahP (Jonah Pulice), and Jerrwin (Gurjiwan Gill) have been great. Obviously, everyone is integrated in their own way.

Sadly, we had a lot of visa problems. We played with a sub today, and Ewok has only been here since last Saturday or last Friday. So a lot of problems, like visas, and the trial period went longer than expected. We tried a lot of people to really find the right one. We tried many, many tier-two players. It's definitely very hard to make changes mid-season, obviously, because there are a lot of things going on. There's tier two going on.

There were times where we couldn't try out some players because they had tier-two matches and we lost some time. Obviously, the 10th story hasn't been very ideal for Sentinels. It's been kind of crazy. It is what it is. It's kind of a new experience for me. We're trying to do the best with the cards we're being dealt.

JohnQT: I mean, we just went through our options. We're very happy with Victor, but overall, there weren't really good options. In tier 2, there are roster locks, so we can't take a player from tier 2. Obviously, you can't take a player from tier 1. There's no way. They're also locked, so the only people who could play were teamless people, like ranked players. We tried Victor for a day, and we thought he was great.

Obviously, he's a Masters winner, played a lot of internationals, and is very experienced. Had good chemistry with the players, and yeah, we had really good practice, really, really good practice. We had like a 92% win rate in scrims, but sadly, it didn't work out today.

JohnQT: I think our biggest strength is our flexibility in a sense. A lot of players are very flexible and can play a lot of different roles. Right now, to be honest, we're still figuring out ourselves as a team. Even Ewok is still figuring out the players. You could practice for like six months, and then you play a match, and it's a whole different team.

So we still need to get those match reps and know how we act on stage in VCT. A lot of times, some stuff in scrims doesn’t really translate. But we've been working insanely hard, really, really hard. That's probably the hardest I've ever had a roster work recently because we have so many things we need to catch up on. Teams have been together for a long time. We're a completely new five, and we've been against teams that have been together for four, three, or two years. So there's a lot of knowledge to catch up on.

JohnQT: I mean, it was a new experience. I always enjoyed living new things, new experiences. I thought it was fun, just a different outlook, because I've always been IGLing on all my teams, so it was just a new experience for me. Sadly, it didn't go well for many reasons. And yeah, it was kind of like I did miss IGLing, and it just felt like with the team we had too much lack of experience, and we didn't have time to learn.

In VALORANT, it's not like you play a tournament every week, every two weeks. You play a tournament, you lose it, and see you in two months. Yeah. Or three months. Maybe this will change soon. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. It didn't feel like the changes made any difference for that one, but yeah, it just felt like, for me and the org, we felt the same thing. And even when they discussed it with Ewok, they all wanted me to IGL. I thought for myself, I love IGLing, and I've done it in every stage. I've won many tournaments doing it. And it's just an easy fix experience-wise.

So we can focus on other things, especially the rookies, and work on them. So we put our focus on that stuff. But yeah, I mean, I had fun. I always said to anyone that if I had the chance to be a fragger, I would be the best in the league. And it was a small sample size, but I proved it. Yeah. And yeah, for me, at the end of the day, I would prefer going last in rating and winning matches. So it doesn't really matter.

JohnQT: Yeah, I will be the team captain, leading the Moroccan team for VALORANT*. The only thing is I need to see schedule-wise because it seems like the qualifier is in June, late June, and it might be difficult depending on what's happening with Sentinels. But I would say, I mean, I would say my teammate Redux (Yassin Aboulalazm), obviously, is Moroccan/Egyptian. So yeah, it's an easy pick.”