SEN cortezia: “Regardless of what happens, I'm going to have fun”

Sentinels ended a four-game losing streak on Thursday, August 20th, with a crucial victory against 2Game Esports, keeping their hopes of reaching the VCT Americas playoffs alive. The result came after a particularly difficult stretch for the team, with Gabriel “cortezia” cortez admitting that the loss to ENVY had affected the roster significantly and raised doubts about their chances of qualifying for Champions 2026.

Despite the team’s struggles, cortezia has remained one of Sentinels’ strongest individual performers throughout the Stage 2 campaign. In an exclusive interview with Sheep Esports, the Brazilian player discussed how he has dealt with the team’s inconsistency, the challenges of playing as a Sentinel in the current double-Duelist meta, and his reunion with former MIBR teammate Eduardo "xenom" Soeiro in a decisive elimination match.

Gabriel “cortezia" cortez: “It’s difficult. We lost four in a row, which is really tough. I think the first three losses were less bitter than the loss against ENVY. We went 3-3 on our map pick, so after the ENVY game, even I was personally very shaken. The human side of us starts to doubt, right? You think, “Damn, are we going to make it to Champions?” In a sport where you depend on performance, confidence is the biggest thing you can have on your side. Those intrusive thoughts after losing four in a row, especially the way we did, will always come. But I think what separates an experienced player in this field from an inexperienced one is whether you let those thoughts become reality or not. I noticed those thoughts a lot this week, and this victory shows me once again that we do have a chance to win. I think every team has a chance to win. 2Game had a chance to win, Fluxo W7M has a chance, Sentinels has a chance as well. So even if it’s difficult and we’re going through struggles, I think you have to believe until the end and give it your all, because who knows, right?

cortezia: I think it used to be easier to lurk with a single-Duelist composition. You play Ascent, and there’s a Jett against you. Your team does an A default, drones, and sees the Jett up there, and I have complete freedom to play B and take all the fights I want. That’s when I start to be very proactive, confident, and impactful, because I start taking those one-on-ones, and I have a high percentage of winning those fights. But now, with the double-Duelist meta, let’s say there’s a Phoenix and a Neon on Ascent. My team defaults to A and sees the Neon on A, but there’s a Cypher, a Sova and a Phoenix on B with a setup and a flash, and they’re going to kill me. So it’s harder to play because the defensive team can apply pressure and fight for both sides of the map. So I think lurking has become very different. Especially when we played Haven, I felt it was much easier to lurk against 2Game’s composition because they only had one Duelist.

We exploited that, and I was literally playing C and killing two because I was taking the one-on-ones. This meta has made lurking more difficult. I think the lurker now has to be much more careful. You have to wait for a lot of information from your team before you start playing. If you play before that, you can get punished, and then you force your team to speed things up on the other side. Obviously, they’re going there. It has become more about staying alive for as long as possible. If your team finds information, then you start playing a little later. It’s been difficult, I’ll tell you that, but I think it’s just about adapting. The type of lurk today is definitely different.

cortezia: My individual performance has been a strong point for me at the moment. I’ve been trying to focus more on helping the guys on the team and helping us as a group, because I can be playing well individually most of the time, but I can also be one of the reasons why the team isn’t doing well as a group. We’ve been focusing a lot on becoming a better group. The match against ENVY showed that we weren’t being a good group, especially in that match. I believe I’ve had a good individual performance in most of the games, but I’ve been trying to focus a lot on helping the team and being better as a team too. I know that when I’m playing on my own, taking one-on-ones, I’m going to kill the guy. But many times, when I’m playing with the team, I’m sometimes lacking a bit of communication from my side, like, “Let’s go in together” or “bait for me” or setting up a play. All of us on the team, even though we have very strong individual players, need to improve on that. So if I can definitely help the team become a better group while maintaining my strong individual level, I think we can go very far.

cortezia: Like I said, the loss against ENVY affected everyone on the team, but I think it affected me the most. Normally, when I leave a match after losing, I think, “Damn, it was really close. We could have won.” Our whole year has been like that, even in Split 1, losing against 100 Thieves and Red Canids. You get that feeling of, “Damn, if I had played that round differently, we could have won.” But the ENVY game was more like, “Man, what are we doing?” We were playing in a cowardly way. I said that in an interview, and I agree with it. Everyone on the team agrees that we played in a cowardly way. For me especially, it was knowing that it could be my last game. Every game now, literally every game, even if we make the playoffs, we start in the lower bracket. So every game now is, “If I lose, I go home”. There won’t be an ENC, and even if there was, I wasn’t invited. It’s the last tournament, I go home, it’s still August, and I’m going to be on vacation, just watching people play and living the dream that I wanted to be living: going to Brazil, playing in front of the fans, and going to China for Champions.

My mindset now, and what helped me a lot, was thinking, “Regardless of what happens, regardless of whether we’re trolling as a team, whether the game is horrible, or whether 2Game starts 8-0 against us, I’m going to have fun”. I had that mindset in Stage 2 with MIBR last year when we were doing really badly. We lost the first 2 games against KRÜ, and we lost against LEVIATÁN. We were 0-2, and I didn’t have any fun in those first games. They were really stressful. I was getting stressed, our communication was bad, and we were playing really badly as a team. Those were some of my worst games because I wasn’t having fun playing. Then, in that stage, we had the match against 100 Thieves. We started losing 10-2 on Bind and came back. I literally said, “Man, regardless of what happens, I don’t care. We can lose and get eliminated here, but I’m going to have fun because I could go home at any moment”.

I think when I play with that mindset, like I did today, every round, regardless of whether we lose or win, I’m going to have fun. If someone on my team is tilted, I’m going to make jokes. I really don’t care. I think that mindset helped me a lot. I think it’s something I have to bring into other games, not just when it’s an elimination match. Whenever we’re about to be eliminated, whether it’s with MIBR or Sentinels, I play with this mindset that I want to have fun regardless of what happens. When I’m having fun, I play well. So it’s something I have to work on for games where, for example, we’re in the upper bracket and we still can’t be eliminated. I need to play with that mindset too: I just want to have fun, because I know that when I have fun, I’m going to play well and I’m going to be in the flow.

cortezia: I was very happy to have that opportunity. When they qualified, I was really happy for them too. I knew that regardless of whether I was eliminated today or xenom (Eduardo Soeiro) was eliminated today, we were going to have fun and be happy to play against each other. It was exactly like that. Before the game, we were sending messages to each other and joking around. After the first map, he messaged me, “2-2, let’s see this map now,” because in our direct confronts, he killed me twice and I killed him twice. I really love him. You mentioned that my first year in Tier 1 was playing with him, but my first year in Tier 2 was also playing with him at TropiCaos. We shared a room and lived together. Since then, I’ve been very close friends with him. I was really happy because after everything that happened with MIBR, with me, artzin (Arthur Araujo) and xenom, it was really sad for us at the time.

We didn’t expect it. I felt really bad for him because he had an incredible year at MIBR. I think his Champions might have been the worst tournament he had in 2025, because his other tournaments were insane. He was one of the best players in the VCT, and then at Champions he dropped a little, but he was still the player with the most assists in the entire tournament. Not having a chance to continue in Tier 1 after the incredible year he had at MIBR, finishing fifth at Champions, I was really sad for him because I know he deserves to be here. He has what it takes to be here. Having the opportunity to play against him again, and in this case for the first time in Tier 1, was really cool. I had never experienced being on the other side of the stage against him. I played against artzin in the first Stage, also at Kickoff, and it was really fun, so I knew playing against xenom would also be really cool.”