Zellsis: “We’re one of NA’s juggernauts, so we expect to make Champions” – EWC VALORANT 2025 Interview

An opening defeat put Sentinels on the verge of an early exit at the inaugural Esports World Cup VALORANT event. However, their turnaround to find subsequent best-of-three wins against XLG and DRX has seen them book a place in the playoff stage. Hotspawn spoke to the vibes merchant, Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, for an interview following the DRX win.

Hotspawn: First of all, congratulations on beating DRX and reaching the final eight.

What are your immediate thoughts on the win?

Obviously the opening game we lost to BBL. You know, we had some stage issues, but it happens. It’s also a BO1. It’s very tough. I don’t remember the last time I played a BO1, maybe like five years ago, four years ago. So it’s been a minute.

But overall, we’ve just been getting used to Riyadh and getting used to the tournament and the format and everything that — the situation — and we’ve been progressing more and more. Obviously we’ve been up and down since Toronto, but our main goal is Champs at the end of the year, making sure we’ve ironed out all the details we need with our team, our comps, our roles, everything like that.

It feels like Sentinels have been a bit unlucky not to have won a title this year, particularly in Americas, due to G2’s dominance.

What does SEN need to do to catch up to G2 and win VCT Americas?

So everything that we do this year is mainly focusing on Champs. Obviously, if we win something up until that point, that would be very nice. But I’m just glad we made playoffs after a very tough BO1 because I definitely didn’t want to fly here and then, two days later, go 0-2 and then it’s just depressing. But we made playoffs and I’m happy with that.

It’s a good thing that we play G2, obviously, because they’re here as well. So the turn around from here to Stage 2 won’t be too bad because we have to play G2 and they’re in the same position as us. Obviously, they’re having a little bit of trouble with their roster as well. Leaf is sick, so that’s a little bit unlucky. [I] don’t know if they’re going to play with him for Stage 2 or not, so we’ll just have to see.

But I mean, we’re just taking each match match-by-match. Obviously now that we’re in playoffs, we’re not really thinking of Stage 2. We’re moreso just thinking about the next match. Obviously we’re one of NA’s juggernauts, so we expect to make Champs. If we don’t, that would be a very big blunder by us. But yeah, for now we’re just focused on EWC.

Who do you think are the strongest teams at EWC VALORANT?

I think everyone in playoffs is looking really strong. I think NRG is looking like they’re in a honeymoon. Fnatic and Paper Rex, obviously grand finalists of Toronto — they’re looking very strong. BBL, screw BBL. And then who else? I think, I think we’re waiting to see who else makes playoffs. But I think this is a very stacked tournament.

Obviously there’s a lot of teams, there’s a lot of things that could go wrong [and] a lot of things that could go right for people. I think every match is just going to be whoever shows up on the day, as usual. That’s very cliche answer, but it’s true.

But for us, I think as long as we keep pushing 30% more and more each series, we’ll keep winning games and obviously that’s what we want to do.

N4RRATE was on fire today, going 42/19/17.

What did you make of his performance?

N4RRATE’s unreal. Obviously he’s an unreal player, but he really shines when he’s doing quick commanding calls and like microing people and kind of just playing his element. And obviously the last two days I think he’s played like unreal. So he just needs to keep doing that. He’s a very talented player, a very smart player. He cares about the game a lot. So I think that’s one of his strong suits. And when he’s doing that, he’s just like a Terminator.