Here’s when shroud will return to esports with Sentinels

Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is returning to esports competition with Sentinels. While organization explicitly made it clear when shroud will debut, there’s only one option.

shroud has dabbled with competitive Valorant on a few occasions in the past. He played in a number of show matches shortly after the game’s release and in 2021 he put together a squad to take part in open qualifiers for official events.

Business picked up when Sentinels announced that shroud had been officially signed to the team’s competitive roster. The news sparked a number of questions, first and foremost among them being whether this was just an elaborate troll. But so far it seems to be completely legitimate. The question now is when shroud will be making his comeback, and it seems likely to be in August.

The legend returns, and he's here to win@shroud joins the Sentinels Valorant roster pic.twitter.com/VaIYTeR2nq

— Sentinels (@Sentinels) July 8, 2022

When is shroud going to play for Sentinels?

shroud is likely to return to esports competition with Sentinels in August. The most likely landing spot for his return in the VCT 2022 North America Last Chance Qualifier.

The Last Chance Qualifiers are a series of regional events to determine the final competitors to compete in the biggest event of the season, VCT Champions. The regions set to take part include North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, EMEA, and East Asia. 

For the North American Last Chance Qualifier, eight teams will take part. The list of teams includes:

• The Guard
• FaZe Clan
• Cloud9
• Shopify Rebellion
• NRG
• 100 Thieves
• Evil Geniuses
• Sentinels

Sentinels is actually the bottom seed in the event. Though Sentinels was crowned the first international champion in Valorant through winning VCT Reykjavík 2021, the team has been unable to emulate that success since. It was eliminated in the quarterfinals of VCT Berlin 2021, failed to advance out of the group stage of VCT Champions 2021, and has struggled to qualify internationally since against a a crowded North American field of competition.

An eighth-place finish in VCT Challengers 2022 North America Stage 1 led to the benching of Jared “zombs” Gitlin in favor of an incoming Eric “Kanpeki” Xu. That didn’t translate to immediate success either, as the team finished 11th in VCT Challengers 2022 North America Stage 2.

Who is shroud replacing in Sentinels?

shroud is likely set to join Sentinels as a stand-in for Hunter “SicK” Mims.

SicK is currently on a mental health break. On June 1, Sentinels announced on Reddit that SicK was dealing with a family matter. On June 20, SicK gave an update on Twitter and stated he will “hopefully return to competitive play soon,” but there’s no word on a hard return date as of yet.

I've been struggling with my mental health over the past month or so. But I'm feeling much better now, thank you everyone for the support. I will hopefully return to competitive play soon. Also of course there will be monthly streams!!

— Hunter Mims (@SicK_cs) June 20, 2022

If shroud’s return with Sentinels is successful, SicK’s leave could be extended further. All indications are that if shroud helps the team reach VCT Champions 2022 that he will remain with the squad at least through the end of that event.