While the momentum for the FaZe Clan VALORANT roster hasn’t stopped, it has stalled. In the upper bracket final of VCT NA Masters One, the red hot FaZe roster fell to Sentinels’ somewhat surprisingly solid play. Sentinels look like they haven’t lost a step after subbing in Tyson “TenZ” Ngo literally the night before Masters begun. They now await in the grand finals, with the golden one-map advantage.
Babybay, and FaZe as a whole, really want to beat Sentinels. Image via Robert Paul for Blizzard.
FaZe are not out, but now await the winner of Team Envy and Gen.G. The winner of that matchup will play in the grand finals, and FaZe’s Jett star Andrej “babybay” Francisty is itching for a chance at redemption. After their loss on Friday, babybay sat down with Hotspawn to discuss their struggles against Sentinels, how they retain their momentum, and why they need their rematch.
Hotspawn: Usually, I ask your opponents this question; but are the one-sided losses easier to shake off than the nailbiters and the heartbreakers?
babybay: Definitely. Yeah. It’s definitely easier to lose by like a landslide than having it be a close game because when it’s a close, close game, you just think like, “Oh, I could have done this one thing differently.” But today, I think we just got outplayed across the board. I don’t think they really had anybody that was like that insane this whole series. I mean, TenZ did really well, but he didn’t do like as insane stuff as like, you would normally expect him to do. They were just the better team overall.
Hotspawn: Are you surprised that Sentinels finally ended the hot streak, especially this version?
Babybay: It’s definitely upsetting because we want to beat this team very bad. We’ve never beaten them, and we always go up against them in tournaments. They always beat us. So we thought this time would be a lot closer than what it was, but they definitely came prepared, and they like did like some minor things that were able to shut down a lot of the plays that we had.
Hotspawn: How much of this can be chalked up to Sentinels being less predictable with TenZ? How much can you put on your own team?
Babybay: I don’t think that’s a big factor in why Sentinels is good. I think that no matter who they have on their team, I think their structure and what they’ve built is already so good that they could pretty much insert any person. They would perform the same way. I don’t think it’s just because TenZ joined, and that’s why; I think they could do it with like anybody, really. They have a really good understanding of how to play the game, and they’re really good at playing against certain play styles. I think they’re pretty good at shutting down early aggression against us, at least.
They have a lot of small plays that they make in order to beat it. But I noticed that when we started slowing down our gameplay, it became a lot easier for us. We were actually starting to win rounds. And we do have like another gear, but you know it’s always good to start off playing how you practice and then making the adaptations as the game goes on. In that first map, it just so happened that we took eight rounds to adapt. And then, you know, then we finally started getting on the board.
Hotspawn: So you’ll have the answers if you get to make it back to the grand final?
Babybay: Absolutely. And that’s the good thing, right? Is that we actually can make minor adaptations, and our other play style where we’re able to just like manhandle teams, it’ll still work against the other teams, you know? And if not, then at least like we already know. Because clearly we figured out a hole in our gameplay, and we’re gonna get better and patch that hole up.
Hotspawn: this is not just your first loss, but the first map you’ve dropped since NRG back in Challengers. What is the key to maintaining the momentum you guys have generated?
Babybay: You know, it sucks losing, but we’re not too down bad. We know that we’re still not out of the tournament, so we just need to go into tomorrow; we’ll get a good warm-up in, watch the teams that are playing and, get a good feel for like how they’re playing, then go into that match and try to dominate it. Then we go back into the finals. We all want this rematch really bad because, you know, the first map was definitely one-sided for sure. But I think the second map was 13-8, and we lost a lot of post plants that I think were in our favor. And we didn’t win a single pistol the entire series. That’s like four rounds right there, guaranteed by winning both pistols.
Hotspawn: Coach Trippy said after the match, “we didn’t play our usual selves, but we bouncy.” Is that the best way to describe you guys?
Babybay: <laughs> I don’t know what he means by that, but I guess! I think we did play like we normally do, but they just had an answer. And as soon as it happens, it does kind of make you hesitate a bit, and our playstyle isn’t meant for hesitation.
