The VALORANT scriptwriters for VCT Americas brought back a favorite from last season. Sentinels have qualified for the first Masters event of the year after a hot start at Kickoff, thanks to a masterful performance from Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro in the lower final versus MIBR.
Known to some fans as the “vibes merchant” or just the Sentinels’ bundle salesman, Zellsis had his best individual series performance in years against MIBR. After the series in which he got just his second ace in VCT, the former Sentinels sub turned superstar spoke to Insider Gaming on his otherworldly performance, his progression as an emotional leader, and the things the team still needs to improve.
The following interview has been edited slightly for clarity and length.
IG: A stupendous series from you against MIBR. What was the key to your performance?
Zellsis: It has to be my teammates. Usually I’m the one that has to come in and keep everyone’s mood up, lift the energy, everything like that. And I kind of did not do that [today], I was just mellow, I kept my vibes neutral and focused on the game, instead of bashing my head against the wall like I usually do to keep emotions up.
My teammates started off the series with really good energy, so it made my job a little bit easier. When we got to Split though, I got a bit more amped because we loss a very intense [game of] Pearl, so I wanted us to get a bit more hype. But my teammates are insane as well; if I had brought the mood, one of them would have picked up the shooting.
IG: Speaking of that Pearl, we saw a little bit of frustration from you after that knife from Aspas, and then some disappointed faces from the team after the map ended. How did you and the team recover after those moments?
Yeah, on the 1v2 I kind of raged. I was just very into the series, I did not want to lose. There were a lot of rounds that should have gone our way, and a lot of rounds where I messed up some key things. I knew one guy was Pit and one was Art, and I just whiffed and got very frustrated in the heat of the moment.
The MVP of vibes was N4RRATE. He was phenomenal today in keeping the vibes up, micro calling for people, and calling out mistakes. I think that’s a big thing that we’re starting to learn on stage together. We need to be calling each other out more when shit goes wrong. None of us are babies, we can fix it in the moment, and if you can’t, then you obviously don’t want to win.
IG: You spoke the other day about your emotional maturity improving and “clicking” over these past couple years. Are there other players or coaches that helped you get better?
All my coaches have always looked at me to be the leader on all my teams from Immi on Version1, to mCe on Cloud9, to now kaplan on Sentinels. They heavily rely on me being the emotional leader for everyone. People who know me know I’m very honest, I’m very brute, and I don’t beat around the bush. But I never try to put someone down when I’m saying something, it’s all about getting better and improving and making sure we’re in the right spot to win.
On C9, when vanity and yay left, mCe forced me to be more of a leader. When we got runi and jakee, we needed a huge voice on that C9 roster. We had the talent, we just didn’t have a lot of voices, we didn’t have a lot of decisive decision-making. And whether I wanted it to be me or not, mCe forced me into that. We had a lot of one-on-ones [together], and it kind of just spiraled me into always having to be like that now. And I’m not complaining, it’s made me a better player overall and a more complete player overall. I can control my emotions more. I can control when I talk about mistakes more and everything like that.
IG: Do you feel your leadership role has increased this year after the departures of Sacy and TenZ?
I definitely think we lack a little bit in high pressure mid-rounding situations. Sacy didn’t really do a lot of micro mid-rounding, but his blueprint of playing the game was fundamentally the right way to play the game. And that’s what he would kind of bring: “Okay, they’re doing this, we need to be doing this.”
He just plays culturally differently than a lot of Americas teams. [NA teams] are always rushing, taking ones, whereas I feel like Brazilian teams always played fundamentally sound and he’s always played like that. So he brought that to this team when he played with us. I think with this team, we’re definitely missing a little bit of that discipline that he brought us. But we’re working on it.
IG: What does it say about this team to be able to rebound from such a lopsided loss to G2 and qualify for Masters Bangkok?
I think people need to remember we haven’t been a team [with this roster] that long. We’ve changed roles, we’ve changed so much to fit this team. And we’re still so young, I mean I’m 26 turning 27, John’s 26 turning 27. And then the drop off is insane: N4RRATE’s 22, bang is 20, and zekken is 19.
There’s so much more re: mental and maturity to work on, but we all want to win and we work hard. I can confidently say this team is one of the hardest working teams I’ve ever been on, from the coaching staff to the players.
Can Zellsis and Sentinels claim another trophy this year? Let us know down below or on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more esports news, check out Derke’s incredible Yoru fake clone play from the other day.
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