Luminosity Gaming’s thief: ‘TenZ was just doing whatever he wanted’

Day 2 of the North American VALORANT Masters tournament took place yesterday, and 100 Thieves and Sentinels are moving on to the upper bracket, while Immortals and Luminosity Gaming are headed to the lower bracket and one loss away from elimination.

LG had a tough upper bracket match with Sentinels, who are considered the team to beat by many fans. Although Jay “sinatraa” Won was suspended for the tournament by his team and Riot Games in light of allegations made by his ex-girlfriend, the team signed a clutch stand-in, Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, who previously played for Cloud9, and recently stepped back from competitive play to become a content creator.

Read more: Rawkus talks FaZe’s rapid improvement, people underestimating ex-Overwatch pros

After the match, Nerd Street Gamers had an opportunity to talk to Brady “thief” Dever, who gave some insight on how TenZ’s sudden signing impacted their preparation and performance in their match against Sentinels.

Nerd Street: What do you think went wrong in this match?

thief: I think our Icebox is kind of shaky, sometimes we’re good on it, and sometimes we’re not. We just get stuck on it sometimes, and I think that’s what brings us down, is we sometimes get stuck and the round just falls apart from there.

Nerd Street: Did anything Sentinels did surprise you in that match?

thief: On the last map, playing against Tenz, we didn’t know he was going to take all those fights. They were unwinnable for me, I couldn’t do anything, that’s what surprised me the most.

Nerd Street: How do you feel about facing Immortals in the lower bracket?

thief: I’m pretty confident going against them. I’d rather play them because we haven’t beat Immortals yet, and I’d like to try to beat those guys for once, so it would feel better for me to take those guys down.

Read more: Immortals coach Packing10 on his ever-changing roster: ‘We think synergy is a myth’

Nerd Street: How do you keep up your confidence going into the next match?

thief: To be honest, every match I go into I always try to be confident for the most part. I’ll just reset for tomorrow and run it back.

Nerd Street: You’ve gone up against Sentinels first, do you feel like now you’ll be better prepared if you have to face them again?

thief: Yeah, I think so. Next time we’ll be ready for TenZ to run around and do what he does and try to shut it down.

Nerd Street: Speaking of TenZ, did his sudden addition to the team in place of sinatraa throw you off?

thief: Yeah, it did a little bit. I think they’re both aggressive players, but they both do it differently. On the last map, TenZ was just doing whatever he wanted to, so it was hard to deal with, and he just found all the right spots to go to. It was a completely different playstyle because sinatraa played Sova, but now TenZ is just running around on Duelist so it’s definitely a lot different.

Nerd Street: Do you think because you were thrown off by TenZ that it impacted the outcome of the game?

thief: For sure. Yeah, and obviously TenZ is one of the best players right now, and he still hasn’t lost anything. This just goes to show it.

Lead image credit: Riot Games