Sentinels and Trace out of VCT Masters Bangkok | Player Reactions

China’s Trace Esports and the Americas’ Sentinels became the first two teams to be eliminated from Masters Bangkok. The sides were both sent home without claiming a single series win in their respective Swiss stage runs and each spoke to the media following their defeat.

Trace convincingly beaten

Trace was the first side to bow out in what was overall the more one-sided series of the day. Up against Korean second seed T1, Trace began on Lotus — their own map pick — and limped to a 13-3 loss. Map two on T1’s Haven saw somewhat of a fightback as Trace found some momentum by winning six rounds between the fifth and twelfth, however they were unable to turn that into any sort of meaningful comeback as T1 quickly took control of the map to win 13-8.

During the post-match press conference head coach destroyeR was asked for his thoughts on why his side struggled at the tournament overall, crashing out without a victory.

“Because of the meta. It’s mainly because we didn’t perform at our best, both for me and all players, and we saw problems.”

LuoK1ng was asked to comment on Trace’s performance, particularly in comparison to better global showings in 2024, as well as finding a balance between innovation and pragmatism.

“I don’t think comps really matter a lot because we’ve tried a lot of comps during practice and we went up against many teams with different comps. We also set up many solutions to different comps. But I think our loss is mainly due to our bad performance where we were not at our best form. We didn’t completely show our practice results, so there is nothing to think about afterwards.”

Check player’s own take on the VCT Masters Bangkok favorites.

Sentinels implode during nAts’ map three masterclass

More entertaining of a matchup was the EU vs NA clash between Team Liquid and Sentinels. Sentinels claimed a fairly one-sided 13-7 opening map on Lotus before TL later woke up for map two. The Abyss game was an instant classic as an unforgettable overtime saw a ludicrous back-and-forth of round wins, all until TL was finally able to string together successive round wins to claim a 16-14 win.

But map three — another instant classic for entirely different reasons — saw Sentinels stunned. IGL nAts ran a clinic on the Americas second seed as Team Liquid steamrolled their way to a thumping 13-1 win, sending Sentinels home in pieces. The former Gambit player earned a ludicrous 455 ACS along with a 25/8/5 scoreline — just shy of 2 kills per round across the 14-round game. 

When speaking to the media, coach kaplan was asked on the turnaround between the map two loss and the tragic map three defeat, quizzed on whether the wind may have been knocked out of his team’s sails between maps due to the close nature of Abyss.

“To be honest, I think the team was doing a very good job trying to wrangle in terms of morale and emotions early on Bind. It’s definitely part of the timeouts but they were pretty strategic too. We are saying: ‘Come on, let’s keep going’. You know, trying to rally. And then we throw a round and we’re still trying to rally. I applaud the guys for that, obviously we’re all disappointed and dropped the ball in a lot of ways. But even though it doesn’t look like it, honestly, in terms of morale, I think that’s the one thing we actually didn’t fall short on too much in map three.”

Reflecting further on the shambolic defeat, IGL johnQT pointed to Sentinels’ inability to close out winning rounds as the key factor, both in map three as well the much closer map two.

“I feel like we were in pretty good positions for a lot of rounds, we just didn’t close them. Most of them, obviously they had very outplays — I think nAts was on fire — but it really heavily implies on us. We just couldn’t close so many rounds. We were [in] so many 4v2 advantages. And I feel like it was kind of the same story on Abyss, the amount of rounds we threw was kind of ridiculous.”

N4RRATE was a new addition this year, joining after a breakout 2024 where he proved himself as a solid tier-one talent after joining EMEA’s Karmine Corp as a relatively unknown name. During the press conference, he was asked what he’s been able to learn at Masters and through his time on Sentinels so far on the whole.

“Since the start of this team I think I’ve learned a lot about myself. Because obviously from Karmine Corp we were playing good and I didn’t really put the dots together on why I was playing so good and why I was doing certain things the way I was, how I was comming and stuff like that. And as this team has gone on I’ve realised what I need as a player and what I need to do as a player to impact my team. I wouldn’t say I know more about what I need to do, I’m just more aware of what I need to do and that helps a lot, especially with the team. 

“It allows me to have a much bigger impact on the game whereas in the off season I was not as comfortable with the team because I wasn’t doing the things I was normally accustomed to. So yeah, I’ve definitely learned a lot, especially even at this tournament, even though we’ve had a very short time. But yeah, I think I’ve definitely found my role in this team and stuff like that.”