In early July 2022, it was the biggest topic in gaming for a few days: Michael “shroud” Grzesiek (28) returns as a professional to eSports and wants to help the team “Sentinels” salvage a botched season in Valorant . But just a month later, it’s all over again.
What was all the hype about? On July 8, the Sentinels team released a short clip: shroud was making a cup of tea and announced, “I’m back, baby.”
The video garnered 7.3 million views and almost 250,000 likes on Twitter. It was a huge deal.
Shroud was supposed to help the organization “Sentinels” secure a playoff spot in North America, after a mixed season in Valorant.
Without professional games, the legend of shroud as “shooter god” on Twitch grows larger
Why was this so big? Shroud was previously a CS:GO professional, though not particularly illustrious; he switched to Twitch early on and became a professional streamer there.
On the streaming platform Twitch, it seemed as though he was a much better shooter player than most other Twitch streamers and average players. Thus, the legend of the “human aimbot” emerged: shroud was considered someone who could aim incredibly well and remained cool in every situation.
To other former shooter professionals, like xQc, shroud appeared vastly superior.
Valorant is a tactical shooter with distinct heroes, like Fade here:
Over the years, shroud’s reputation as the “best shooter player ever” grew steadily. He played against “normal opponents,” not against professionals.
Overall, things went brilliantly for the Canadian: shroud became one of the biggest streamers on Twitch in the last 8 years and even made a fortune with a stint at Mixer.
Due to his excellent reputation, many were eager to see how the 28-year-old Canadian would perform in a “real professional team.”
The star player of Sentinels, Tenz, said: This is no PR stunt to bring in shroud. He has what it takes to be a pro.
Sentinels miss playoff spot – season ends disappointingly
Was there a happy ending? No, there was not. After Sentinels had already missed the first chances to qualify for the playoffs in Valorant, the team now had the last chance. But they lost that one too.
Sentinels faced off against 100 Thieves in a “last chance qualifier”: But it was another loss for the team, albeit a close one. They lost 1-2.
The season is over for the Sentinels, and the team must reorganize for next year.
Observers agree that shroud delivered a decent performance, even if it was not enough for victory.
There was already a discussion about whether Sentinels are serious about shroud or if it is just a PR stunt:
Preparation was too short to compete with the top teams
How does shroud assess his performance? Shroud says he was about 50% of his top performance that he can deliver in Valorant. Because he lacked preparation time in the bootcamp. Had he gone through the full preparation, he would have likely performed better.
Overall, he was slightly dissatisfied with his performance in the last match:
I felt like I didn’t play as well as I can. I had a strong game two in the “best-of-three” series, but a pretty poor performance in the last round, for that I want to apologize.
shroud
Will shroud continue? In a stream, shroud said: “When the franchise league comes and if it is in LA, there’s a very good chance I’ll continue playing professional Valorant.”
He believes in his team: If they stick together and complete a bootcamp, they can be dangerous, he says.
It remains to be seen whether shroud can really make a breakthrough in the next season. It would be quite extraordinary: Because at 28, shroud is relatively old for a shooter professional and he lacks the constant training and competitive experience that players like Tenz (21) have already gained in recent months.
But shroud apparently sees it differently:
Twitch streamer shroud says: E-sports professionals can still compete even at 50
