Reigning North American Stage 2 Challengers 2 champions Sentinels did not allow Version1 to comeback during the opening match of the NA Challengers Finals.

After losing the first game on Ascent, 4-13, Sentinels returned to championship form and demolished Version1 in the next two games in convincing fashion.

Sentinels’ Cypher expert, Michael “dapr” Gulino, even pulled off the best clutch we’ve seen thus far in the competition.

Sentinels’ Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan got too aggressive after the plant, and was taken out by Version1’s own Sova. Left in a 1v3 situation, dapr picked off enemy agents making their way to the C site, while playing on top of the planted spike.

After getting two quick kills, darp decided to make the most of the 45-second spike timer by playing an amazing keep-away game from Maxim “wippie” Shepelev’s Viper.

Whenever wippie would commit to a push, dapr was able to make it to cover which prevented any type of spike defuse.

Sentinels won on Haven 13-6 with dapr scoring a 19/10/4 KDA, only second to his teammate Hunter “SicK” Mims’ Phoenix who finished 23/13/5. Dapr and company put together an even better performance in the last game of the series, winning 13-3 on Split.

Sentinels’ win advances them to the upper bracket semifinals, where they’re set to face 100 Thieves. 

The match is filled with interesting storylines. Sentinels are the reigning NA Masters 1 champions, which makes them the best team in North America. 100 Thieves previously had that distinction when they won the NA First Strike tournament last December.

On top of all that, Sentinels’ superstar stand-in, Tyson “TenZ” Ngo will be facing 100 Thieves, the organization that recently signed his girlfriend Kyedae Shymko, as a content creator.

READ MORE: Complete match results for the VCT SEA Challengers Playoffs