SEN kaplan: “A lot of guilt and frustration” at 2025… “I really wanted to redeem myself this time around”

Sentinel’s 2025 saw consistent high placements regionally — qualifying for all global events — but their international performances were underwhelming. A roster shakeup has seen bang, Zellsis, and zekken leave, the latter rumoured to be joining aspas at MIBR, with cortezia joining and Kyu and reduxx promoted from Cubert Academy. To review the moves, Hotspawn was able to speak to head coach Adam “kaplan” Kaplan ahead of his side’s appearance at Red Bull Home Ground.

Hotspawn: Touching on zekken’s departure first, he feels like such a crucial off season piece for the league and is a player that, presumably, an org would prefer to try and re-sign earlier to avoid him going into free agency.

What are your thoughts on his departure? Was it a surprise that he chose to move on?

Kaplan: Of course we were interested in the possibility of working with him again. I know Rob’s already said that a couple of times online. The way it works in Riot and in Valorant, and the way Sentinels would do business anyways, is obviously that a player gets their opportunity to look out for their options when a contract ends. There’s really no way around that, which is a really good thing. And he ended up finding another home.

As far as ‘was it a shock?’, because of what I’m saying, I know it’s always up in the air whether a player’s gonna work out — whether they’re gonna fit on a team or not. So [we] made sure to think about all options and just stay prepared and stay positive and optimistic about the team we can build, whether it’s got Zach on it or not. So it wasn’t a massive shock, I’d say, that it didn’t work out.

Hotspawn: Zellsis and bang leaving, from the outside, was much less surprising. But with Zellsis’ position as the leader outside of the game, there would be a bit of a void left by his absence.

How conscious were you of that when building the 2026 roster?

Kaplan: So obviously Jordan brings a lot of energy and vibes on stage. I think everyone sees that. I think that vibe merchant term and people’s understanding of what Jordan brings to a team is often — which is understandable from a limited outside perspective — is limited to that more than it ought to be.

The things that I had to remain especially conscious about as a coach is the week-to-week grind. So Jordan is the type of player where, when you’re in the thick of a season, where you’re in a more stressed point in a season, when you’re having a big team meeting, when you’re having a scrim day where people are at odds with each other or not putting in their all, he does a lot as a player to help with that stuff and help coaches out with that.

I think that this team has a lot of good heads on their shoulders, and still has John who’s a vet and able to bring that stuff. So it all works out.

I think that there were certainly possible roster builds where I would have anticipated more difficulty maybe in the personality fits, and where I think that Jordan’s intangibles would be a lot more severely missed. Of course, as a coach I’ll miss strong points of players I’ve worked with no matter what. But I was pretty conscious of how much of a detriment it would be to lose that or not, depending on the roster we built. And I feel really good about the one we ended up with.

Hotspawn: Kyu and reduxx’s promotions makes sense having seen skuba’s success on NRG at the end of last season, and Rob Moore spoke on Plat Chat about reduxx being given controls over the Cubert roster for 2025.

Was it always the plan to eventually have him promote?

Kaplan: No, I don’t think it was ever a guaranteed thing for him. And I made that clear as a coach, too, that I think reduxx is a great player. But whether he fits on Sentinels or not, up in the air, and he understood that too. So it wasn’t a guaranteed situation for him at all.

But just like other players, he had his trial, he had his interviews with me, and I was really happy with everything I saw and was pumped to give him the spot in the end.

Hotspawn: Johnqt’s re-signing seemed to drag on for a while, during which time there were rumours he might end up leaving. Eventually, he is staying, but moving off of his previously role as the main IGL.

Was changing role his intention this off season, and did that play a part in why it took a while to see his spot on SEN confirmed?

Kaplan: So I can’t speak for him on what he would want to do objectively, like with his career or regardless of opportunity. But for me, I definitely want some cooks in the kitchen and not too many cooks in the kitchen. I think most teams obviously have an IGL, a secondary caller. We definitely needed a veteran presence on the team. We need someone who can lead a huddle, can speak up in a team meeting, can really take control as a captain when things aren’t going well, who has the experience to do that.

And he’s a very mature and experienced guy. He’s also an incredibly talented player individually. I’ve worked with him for a long time. I felt that he filled that role in a way that we were going to have a hard time finding elsewhere, in a way that can compete with what he can do.

And that goes for him in game too. He’s such a flexible player, he can do so many different things. And then the other role we needed would be an IGL or secondary caller, somebody who plays the dedicated initiator role. I was really impressed with Kyu in trials. I think they’re both great players, and I was interested in making it work with both of them.

And the flow we have right now with letting Kyu kind of take on the IGL mantle and generally full call the game plan, but have John be this veteran, be this beast, fragger and flex player, and this player who can really chime in, optimise when he’s got an idea, but not have the pressure to do that every step of the way. Really still have a heavy hand in strategy in the week-to-week. I think it just made the most sense to myself and GUNTER and to the org and John definitely was open to it.

I think he knows he’s very talented and has a lot of different strengths and that he’s not losing value by getting off of main IGLing. He’s just shifting his value into other things he’s really good at already.

Hotspawn: The final piece was cortezia. What are your thoughts on bringing him in?

Kaplan: I’m thrilled to have him. He’s just such a beast at the game, obviously, and he’s really eager to learn. I think he’s still newer to the Sentinel role, he’s only had one year on it with MIBR — he’s excited to get coached on that stuff. He’s so mechanically talented and his energy is just awesome.

He’s so funny, he’s always smiles, he lights up a room when he walks in. And I think everyone’s doing their part, but he’s playing a really big part in how much fun the team is having right now.

Hotspawn: Looking back at last season, getting top three in all regional events and attending all global tournaments would be a massive achievement for 90% of VCT teams, but of course the expectations are different for Sentinels. Following that, there had been some debate about whether the org should even celebrate making all internationals given that some runs were fairly underwhelming.

How do you reflect on 2025?

Kaplan: Yeah, obviously I am proud of a lot of it. We did make every international. We did a good job at Toronto. We did a good job regionally, but I understand, I agree with the frustration that there was not a visible growth in terms of results. We couldn’t grab a regional trophy, and at the end of the day, we got 0-2 grouped at Champs. So ultimately I do feel like I failed in that sense as a coach.

I think that it was definitely a frustrating year for me. I carried a lot of guilt and frustration at the fact that I felt like everyone on the team deserved to hold up a trophy is good enough to be able to hold up a trophy.

I felt that the chemistry and fit of that exact five was fundamentally not what you want in a winning team. And ultimately that is my fault — more than anyone, I am ultimately responsible for the roster build. And we built a roster that I think did every player’s individual talents an injustice.

And yeah, I really wanted to redeem myself this time around and worked incredibly hard, as did others, to make sure that this time around that wouldn’t happen; that you wouldn’t get players who are dealt a disservice by being on a team because they either can’t get the help or can’t get held up and supported in the right way in terms of what’s around them.

Today is the debut day of Sentinels 2026 roster as we compete in our own @Sentinels SEN City Classic. I’d like to share some promises from myself to all of our supporters in what lies ahead.

I – alongside everyone else at this org and on this team – have worked painstakingly…

— SEN kaplan (@itskaplan) November 6, 2025

Hotspawn: You made a post about the current roster build, highlighting the personality fit of the players.

How helpful is it to have these off season events with regards to having the team gel together and not be a group of strangers when the season starts?

Kaplan: Yeah, it’s excellent. First of all, obviously it’s really useful to figure out how everyone works together in a match environment, and I’m incredibly grateful to Sentinels for understanding that. And you know, obviously there’s many reasons to put on a tournament, but

I’d like to believe that one of the biggest, if not the biggest reason is that Sentinels want to make sure that our team gets a really good opportunity to get some experience in the off season. So it was awesome to see everyone kind of show off what they’re like in a match environment and get to understand each other, what they’re like in a match environment, and get that to click.

And as for Red Bull New York, it’s more opportunity to do that. It’s opportunity to do that with higher stakes and tougher opponents, obviously, there’s some pretty insane teams here. But I’m also really glad to just have the team chemistry, team bonding part, to travel, to have fun checking out New York, experiencing things, just building that chemistry and bond together.

And also, it isn’t international, it’s domestic for us, but still, how do players travel? How do they handle flights? How do they handle adjusting to a hotel room? How do they handle a small amount of jet lag? These things are all useful for myself and others on the team to get to know our new guys and get a little bit of a head start on understanding what challenges we might run into when we make our first international next year, hopefully.