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PAX Arena Invitational: Sentinels defeat Cloud9 to become the champs

PAX Arena Invitational: Sentinels defeat Cloud9 to become the champs

Naim "EnKay" Rosinski

07/27/2020

PAX Arena Invitational has come to an end. Being part of the Ignition Series initiative, the event featured a $25,000 USD prize pool, with the Sentinels going home with $10,000, as it was them that won the grand finale.

The event was divided into the group stage and followed by the playoffs which featured a classic single elimination bracket. All matches played out at PAX Arena Invitational were best-of-three (BO3) except the final.

Check out our viewer’s guide for all the teams, groups and favorites of the concluded event.

The Group Stage

Group A and B

Photo credit: Liquipedia Valorant

These two groups both had the two favorites of the tournament top their respective groups with a clean 4-0 scoreline. Naturally, we’re talking about Team SoloMid (TSM) and T1. Also, group A was subject to one of the biggest upsets of the group stage. 100 Thieves was the suspected team to go through alongside TSM. Meanwhile, Spencer “Hiko” Martin and co. only managed to best 100 Blifted. Instead, Homeless, an organization-less team took their place with a very respectable performance throughout the tournament.

Meanwhile on group B, T1 and Team Envy were the favorites to go through, and they did. Despite Way 2 French coming close, it just was not close enough. Also, this is the only group in which all matches finished with a 2:0 sweep in the BO3 matchups.

Group C and D

Photo credit: Liquipedia Valorant

Not many surprises in group C and D of PAX Arena Invitational. Group C saw Immortals and Gen.G go through. Though Mixup did give a hard time to Gen.G, while Prospects held their own against Immortals, this was not enough for the underdogs to succumb to defeat.

Group D was the most interesting group as it had four professional organizations. Despite that, Cloud9 and Sentinels went through, and little did anyone know that they’d meet in the grand finale once more. Complexity and Renegades were a little disappointing when they went up against C9 and Sentinels as the class difference between the teams was visible.

Playoffs and the Finale

The quarter and semi finals were an absolute blast to watch. The matches were a mix of both, upsets, as well as extremely tight matchups where every mistake counted.

Although TSM beat Envy 2:0, the quarterfinal was very close, with TSM winning Haven 14:12, before clutching out Ascent 13:11. The team’s form would carry on to haunt them into the semifinals.

T1 versus Homeless quarterfinal was by far the biggest upset of the PAX tournament. T1, being considered the finest on the North American Valorant scene, were beaten by an unsigned team team of five. Not many could have expected this outcome, especially not in the quarterfinals.

The semifinals brought another pretty heavy upset. Sentinels absolutely breezed through TSM beating them 13:3 on Ascent, before continuing their destruction on Bind with 13:4. The other semifinal saw Cloud9 take on the biggest surprise of the tournament, Homeless. This is where Homeless’ journey would end, however, as Cloud9 showed them their place with a nice 2:0 win to enter the final against Sentinels.

The final pit the two winners of group D, Sentinels and Cloud9. The two teams went head to head in the finale with Sentinels coming out on top in the end with a 3:1 scoreline. in the best-of-five matchup.

  • Ascent: Sentinels 13:11 Cloud9
  • Haven: Sentinels 6:13 Cloud9
  • Bind: Sentinels 13:11 Cloud9
  • Split: Sentinels 13:7 Cloud9

Sentinels take $10,000 and go home from PAX Arena Invitational after a great showing at the NA event.

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