Zellsis Calls Out Riot For Poor Technical Management During Stage Match

Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, a member of the Sentinels roster that won VCT Masters Madrid, took to his livestream to criticize Riot Games for putting his team in an unfavorable situation during their Champions Tour 2024: Americas Stage 1 match against 100 Thieves. The Sentinels team had to play under technical issues during an important match.

Zellsis already mentioned that he knew he could get in trouble for telling this story on his stream and is prepared to face the consequences because he thinks this situation was too out of hand.

The North American revealed that the entire team’s setups had significant audio issues during one of Sentinels’ matches on the stage against 100 Thieves. The game audio was not working properly, and the team communication volume has not yet been adjusted.

The Sentinels roster was looking to work with the staff to fix these technical difficulties, but they were forced to exit the stage as the team walk-outs were about to begin. The team insisted on delaying the walk-outs as they wanted to get these audio issues sorted out first since they could not play the game properly had these troubles remained unsolved.

According to Zellsis, the response the team received was, “Alright, you can fix it when we get back in the game.”

After the walk-outs were completed, the Sentinels roster went to get seated in their positions, looking to fix the audio on their computers quickly. However, the game was immediately started, and the team did not have enough time to repair the issues.

Rightfully, the Sentinels squad complained to the admins, mentioning they needed to fix the audio as they could not hear anything. Still, the reply they got was along the lines of: “No, you just have to play with it and fix it as we go.”

The streamer continued the story, saying that every round, one or two dead Sentinels players would have to adjust their audio in the middle of the match, communicating with the staff to increase or decrease the player volumes. Zellsis did not specify, but such a thing could lead to clogging of comms, which is a big deal in a team-oriented game like Valorant.

Apparently, the Sentinels roster was not allowed a technical timeout, which is bizarre to hear. Zellsis mentioned that if the team asked for a technical pause, Riot would “threaten” them by taking out a tactical timeout or giving the players a warning.

After hearing this news, fans were appropriately angered at the tournament organizers, Riot Games itself. It is mind-blowing that Sentinels had to play under such a handicap and get treated like that after becoming world champions. Still, Sentinels could win the series against 100 Thieves after a 2-0 sweep.

Header: Zellsis Instagram