Sentinels take comfortable victory against FaZe Clan, move on in First Strike

It was Sentinels who came out victorious in their match against FaZe Clan in the Quarterfinals of North American First Strike. Despite showing improvement on their past showings, FaZe couldn’t match up to the #1 team in THESPIKE.GG’s North American rankings. While FaZe have been eliminated, Sentinels will move on to play the winner of the 100 Thieves vs. T1 match taking place later tonight.

Bind, the pick of FaZe Clan, was the first map, and agent picks were quite standard on both sides. For the defending Sentinels, they lined up with the duelist duo of Hunter "SicK" Mims on Raze and Jay "sinatraa" Won’s Phoenix. The pistol went Sentinels’ way after winning a 2v3 on A site, and after winning the eco, they also took the first rifle round flawlessly. The teams traded subsequent rounds 3 for 3, with FaZe significantly slowing down the pace of the game to achieve some success. FaZe would win 2 of the final three rounds to leave Sentinels with only a 7-5 advantage at the half, with Corey "corey" Nigra’s great rifling and entering leaving him at the top of the scoreboard with 14 kills.

FaZe scored a quick, flawless victory in the second pistol round, but with only Classics, Sentinels followed up with an eco round win. Sentinels continued to barely stay ahead, with Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan helping by getting a 4k on 7 HP. ShahZaM would continue to show up huge for his team, top fragging as they began to pull away. They completely shut down FaZe’s attack on Round 20, forcing FaZe on an half buy as Sentinels hit match point. The resulting round was scrappy but ultimately successful for the two-time Ignition Series champions, as sinatraa closed the map out with a 4k to give Sentinels the 13-8 win.

The teams next headed to Sentinels’ pick of Split, where they’d been very successful in tournaments past. Agent picks were quite interesting, with SicK piloting Skye and Andrej "babybay" Francisty picking up Breach instead of his typical Jett to make space for Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen on Phoenix. Sentinels won the pistol round on attack, and after they also took the first rifle round, things began to snowball out of control. A 4k from babybay with the Operator helped FaZe out, and they swung things back by shutting down Sentinels’ entries. More trading of rounds left the half at 7-5 Sentinels as they moved to the defense.

Sentinels again won the pistol - their third out of four - and followed it up with the next three to get ever closer to victory. FaZe were constantly being out-aimed, and Sentinels closed things out in clinical fashion. They didn’t let FaZe take a single attacking round en route to a 13-5 map win and 2-0 series win.

First Strike North America Regional Final

Sentinels

2

X

0

FaZe Clan

Quarter Final, Best of 3 - December 4, 2020 - 9:00PM

13

Bind

8

13

Split

5

Sentinels

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

ShahZaM

0.00

288

39/24/9

+15

1.63

0.0%

172.3

19%

57%

4

3

SicK

0.00

210

29/26/10

+3

1.12

0.0%

121.8

16%

43%

3

4

sinatraa

0.00

219

32/22/9

+10

1.45

0.0%

115.3

21%

47%

8

9

zombs

0.00

183

24/25/12

-1

0.96

0.0%

115.3

16%

83%

5

1

dapr

0.00

191

26/22/13

+4

1.18

0.0%

126.4

19%

0%

0

2

FaZe Clan

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

Marved

0.00

200

25/33/9

-8

0.76

0.0%

137.0

24%

50%

6

6

corey

0.00

281

35/32/6

+3

1.09

0.0%

170.8

22%

56%

5

4

ZachaREEE

0.00

215

30/31/6

-1

0.97

0.0%

134.3

29%

67%

2

1

babybay

0.00

205

23/26/14

-3

0.88

0.0%

113.2

8%

38%

5

8

Rawkus

0.00

51

5/28/10

-23

0.18

0.0%

36.0

12%

50%

1

1