Sentinels and SyykoNT part ways

On the eve of week 4 or Super Week in the VCT Americas League, one of the most popular organizations in the North American VALORANT scene, Sentinels, has changed its coaching staff. As the organization’s CEO reported, Don “SyykoNT” Muir is immediately stepping down as the team’s Head Coach.

While it is true that many teams always try to put together their lineups in the best possible way, it is very rare that in the middle of such an important tournament, an organization decides to change its coaching staff. Instead, these changes usually happen when the players have a problem with the coach, or the coach does not follow the organization’s lines.

However, the change has already been made, and now the team will have a few days to get used to the new technical direction to play their next two games.

Sentinels fires VALORANT Head Coach SyykoNT

The organization’s CEO, Rob Moore, announced on his Twitter account that Sentinels made the “complicated decision” to dismiss SyykoNT. In addition, he also announced that Adam “Kaplan” Kaplan would take over as the team’s technical director for the remainder of the tournament.

In a non-explanatory announcement, Moore gave no details regarding the reasons for this dismissal. However, looking at the team’s performance in the first three weeks (one win and two losses), we can imagine that everything points to poor results.

About SykkoNT

SykkoNT has been part of Sentinels since October 2022. At that time, according to SykkoNT’s own words, he joined the organization with the mission to create a “Super-Team” for VCT Americas 2023.

However, since then, the coach could only lead his team to victory a couple of times in seven official games played. On the other hand, this decision comes after the Sentinels did not start their 2023 season in the best way. In addition, we must consider that the quality of this team’s roster is phenomenal. We have some of the best players in NA and two of the best in BR.

Before joining Sentinels, SykkoNT was the Head Coach of XSET for two years. In that time, XSET finished 5th-6th place in the VALORANT Champions 2022. This is undoubtedly the best result in the organization’s history.

About Kaplan

Now, SykkoNT’s replacement as Head Coach of Sentinels will be Kaplan. The 28-year-old American was part of the Sentinels technical staff, as he was the strategic coach. In addition, he had been the team’s assistant coach on several occasions.

However, before joining Sentinels, Kaplan was part of Code7 and Spacestation Gaming as a player in 2020. This was before he jumped to coach starting in 2021 when he did so with Ghost Gaming.

There is no doubt that this change will affect Sentinels’ game development, but we will have to wait to see whether it will be positive or negative. However, this wait will not last long, as Sentinels’ next game, now with Kaplan in charge, will be next Friday, April 21, against none other than LOUD, the current world champions.

Header: Colin Young-Wolff | Riot Games