Sentinels head coach Don “SyykoNT” Muir has been dropped midway through VCT 2023: Americas League with Adam “kaplan” Kaplan taking the reigns as the VALORANT tournament reaches its halfway point.
Sentinels CEO Rob Moore shared on Twitter on April 16 that the org had come to the “difficult decision to part ways” with Kaplan stepping in immediately.
Moore failed to reveal exactly why the team’s coach was removed, however, a string of poor results for Sentinels was the likely catalyst.
SykkoNT joined the organization in Oct. 2022 with plans to “build a VALORANT super-team.” During his short tenure, the roster only won two out of seven matches. This decision comes after a lengthy run of underperformance from the once top-tier org. The current Sentinels roster has won just two out of their last 15 games, with seven map wins in 34 attempts.
The ousted coach previously donned the XSET jersey as head coach of their VALORANT roster for two years. The squad placed 5-6 in VALORANT Champions 2022, with that placement leading to XSET’s highest ranking, according to VLR.GG.
SykkoNT has been replaced as Sentinels head coach by kaplan. The American had already been an assistant coach for the squad since joining Sentinels alongside SykkoNT in Oct. 2022. Before that, kaplan was a part of several lower-tiered VALORANT squads. The most noteworthy name was Ghost Gaming, followed by Spacestation Gaming and Ghostbusters.
With Sentinels’ VCT 2023: Americas League journey far from over, there’s a chance this could dramatically impact their performance. We’ll have to wait and see whether it improves the VALORANT squad in the long run.
The VALORANT squad is in action again next weekend, on April 21.
