"The completely dominant score reflects that we have a team atmosphere issue we need to fix" - Kaplan after the upsetting loss against Cloud9

VALORANT esports is truly a gift that keeps on giving as day 2 of VCT 2023 - Americas League’s week 5 produced yet another entertaining matchup between two premier NA teams: Sentinels and Cloud9. With a record of 2-3 going into the matchup, Sentinels were looking to improve their record for a better chance at a Playoff spot, whereas Cloud9 was looking to improve their seeding on the table and come toe-to-toe with LOUD.

Despite a rocky start to the event, the Sentinels roster seems to finally found their rhythm especially with the added contributions of Kaplan who was called in this week to replace TenZ due to health related concerns. His contributions were noteworthy, both against LOUD and mibr, a factor that might dictated the starting roster Sentinels fielded against Cloud9 today. However, the roster seemed to be under distress today with a rather upsetting loss against Cloud9, following which THESPIKE.GG was granted the opportunity to conduct an interview with Adam "kaplan" Kaplan, breaking down his thoughts on the game, roster change and factors to improve on for next week.

Kaplan on the upsetting loss against Cloud9

THESPIKE.GG: As soon as the result became apparent, what were your immediate thoughts? How are you reflecting upon it?

Kaplan: Regardless of result, to me the completely dominant score reflects that we have a team atmosphere issue that we need to fix, and our energy is not what we needed it to be to play good VALORANT today.

THESPIKE.GG: So earlier this week, you guys announced a massive roster change for Marved coming in for TenZ. I know that having only two weeks of practice is not enough to make a judgment but do you think it played into today's performance?

Kaplan: Yeah, I don't think that was a big part of it. I think that the reasons we lost today are reasons that would have existed with either version of the roster.

THESPIKE.GG: Let's talk more about Lotus. You guys started off well. You guys won personal equal and even bonus, but then suddenly of such flip, what do you think happened in those rounds and why do you think your offense couldn't make any moves?

Kaplan: I think Leaf does a really good job on Neon, abusing how fast he can rotate and being pretty unpredictable about where he ends a round. We were not used to playing around Neon on Lotus.

THESPIKE.GG: Do you think any changes regarding the veto would have helped? Like maybe gone with a different map as opposed to Lotus?

Kaplan: We were well practiced, and we expected them to play that comp and I'd watched it over, so nothing I feel like we could have done different in hindsight on the veto..

THESPIKE.GG: What do you think about the play calling today? Do you think it was a little bit underwhelming?

Kaplan: I think that when there's issues with the team energy and comms as a whole. It's hard to evaluate play calling as low energy overall makes it a much more difficult task than it is supposed to be.

THESPIKE.GG: With the record looking 2-4 after today, how do you think you can move fast at going into future matchups, especially as the schedule gets more tensed and pressurized?

Kaplan: From the start, I felt like our second half of our schedule was in theory easier than our first and I'm going to stick with that mentality. I think if everyone on the team understands what the biggest issue from today was and agree on it, we'll be able to fix it and clinch playoffs.

THESPIKE.GG: Talk about the second half on Fracture. It seemed like there was a chance for a comeback, at least a glimmer of hope. How did the energy shift in that half or do you think that was just Cloud9 not being able to perform up to the mark and just Sentinels taking advantage, sort of like a lucky strike?

Kaplan: I think that the easiest way to lift team energy up is winning rounds and we saw our energy and confidence start to snowball upward on fracture because of that. We just need we need to be able to create that lift in energy without relying on round wins to do so in the future.

THESPIKE.GG: If you were to change a particular thing about the gameplay in general, what would it be, apart from lifting energy up?

Kaplan: I think we could have been more patient with trying to find out where their setups and I think we could do a better job at finding the gaps on defense.

THESPIKE.GG: One last question before we conclude, your matchup next week is against Evil Geniuses? What do you think about that matchup? Do you reckon it might help you sort of gain your position back in the League?

Kaplan: I think regardless of what opponent we play next week, the issues we had today as a team are so fundamental and so within our reach to fix that we can have a way better shot at winning next week no matter what.

Make sure to check out our VCT 2023 Hub for all the information about the VALORANT events this year.

Featured image courtesy of Riot Games.