TenZ says ‘it would definitely be a consideration’ if given the chance to join Sentinels permanently

Jay “sinatraa” Won’s sudden suspension from competing at Masters following allegations made by his ex-girlfriend left a giant hole in Sentinels’ roster. Social media went wild with speculation around who was going to replace sinatraa for the tournament.

On Thursday, a day before they were set to compete at Masters, Sentinels announced Tyson “TenZ” Ngo would be coming out of competitive retirement to temporarily join them. TenZ joined Cloud9’s VALORANT team last year before moving to content creation. Fans flooded his social media accounts to show support immediately after the announcement.

“The fans are really supportive,” TenZ told Nerd Street. “It put a smile on my face just to read kind messages people were tweeting at me or in my DMs. I basically broke my personal record for viewer count [on Twitch] that night.”

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Since his match against Luminosity Gaming, fans have been expressing their desire to keep TenZ around permanently. Shortly after TenZ was announced as the replacement, some comments started popping up on social media with fans’ desire for him to become a permanent replacement.

“It would definitely be a consideration,” TenZ said about whether he would consider remaining with Sentinels permanently if the opportunity presented itself.

When asked whether he would like to return to content creation or settle back into professional play, TenZ said “I do enjoy content creation, but weighing them both together, maybe for right now, I do prefer being a pro player, but also streaming on the side.”

Sentinels had a great first match against LG, and pulled out some absolutely massive plays. TenZ proved to be a solid replacement despite the fact there was no time for him to prepare and practice with the team.

“ShahZaM contacted me over Twitter DM and asked me if I could step in, and so I got to my agent and I think everyone with C9, my agent and Sentinels worked something out to loan me out to Sentinels,” TenZ said. “I basically found out I was playing [Thursday], or the day before, but we didn’t scrim at all and just [Friday], we got on at 11 [a.m. PT], our match started at 12, and we just talked for an hour.”

Everything came together so last minute, that he even played the entire first map on the wrong dpi settings.

“I switch my mice a lot,” he said. “I might have hit the dpi switch on the bottom when I was changing my mice, so I felt really shaky the first map and I was wondering why. Before the second map I was checking all my gear and making sure it was OK, and I realized the color on the bottom was different.”

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Beyond a shaky first map, TenZ proved to be a disruptive force the rest of the match against LG.

“[TenZ] was hard to deal with, and he just found all the right spots to go to,” LG’s Brady “thief” Dever told Nerd Street. “It was a completely different playstyle because sinatraa played Sova, but now TenZ is just running around on Duelist so it’s definitely a lot different.”

Despite whatever disadvantages Sentinels might have endured with the last-minute replacement and TenZ’s equipment mishap, they came out with the 2-1 victory over LG. Sentinels will face 100 Thieves on Sunday to close out the first weekend of Masters.

“I find it really fun to play against 100 Thieves, just because they play differently than other teams,” TenZ said.

The winner of their match will move on to the upper bracket final against either Team Envy or FaZe Clan, and the loser will face Gen.G in the lower bracket.

Lead image credit: Arctic Invitational/Instagram