TENSTAR was the hot surprise team of EU’s Challengers 2 event of Stage 3 VCT. The former org-less Tarren Mill roster saw the underdog team beat the likes of Team Heretics and Team BDS in contention for a place at EMEA Challengers Finals. TENSTAR was defeated by Fnatic in the Lower Bracket Round 3 best-of-three matchup, eventually leading to TENSTAR leaving the event.

We got to have a chat with Jack “Br0die” Emmott, the in-game leader of TENSTAR. You can check out the YouTube interview below or alternately read the written version down below.

Interview with Br0die

Runitback: First of all, congratulations to you and your TENSTAR squad for getting this far into Challengers 2. You guys came out of nowhere to defeat some of EU’s top teams like Heretics and Team BDS on your journey. As the IGL (in-game leader) what contributed to this sudden success of TENSTAR?

Br0die: Building up to this event we were super confident we could beat the majority of the teams here. We’ve been practicing six days a week for the last two weeks non-stop. Seven-eight hours a day. Everyone was playing the game as much as possible. Living and breathing VALORANT. We got our coach and our analyst working all the time. Anti-stratting teams, watching how they play, seeing their tendencies and their weaknesses. And when it came to the games we really exploited them. As you saw, we beat BDS, we beat Rix.GG. Very close game versus Liquid, we had control of both maps. Unfortunately, we lost both maps but I think it comes down to a lot of preparation and yeah, big shoutout to our coach and analyst.

Runitback: Honestly, when TENSTAR picked you guys up as the Tarren Mill roster, did you ever think you’d be in this spot right here, right now?

Br0die: Yeah, definitely. Our goal is to be a top contending team. Even higher than where we placed now. We were aiming for EMEA, that was our goal. Obviously, we made the Main Event, that’s great. We thought we could upset a couple more big teams. Liquid, very close. Fnatic, not really that close, we weren’t on our game. But when TENSTAR picked us up, they were super confident in us. Their support has been great so far. And yeah, we’ll be back and we’ll be stronger.

Runitback: Let’s talk about your Cypher/Killjoy setup on Breeze as well as your overall defense and defensive strats that have been kind of become one of the main talking points of this Challengers 2 event. Walk me through your agent compositions and how they have stayed so effective throughout.

Br0die: Yeah, so we haven’t played Breeze at all coming into this event. Our coach was like we shouldn’t really focus on Breeze, just play a couple of days on Breeze and see if we are good on it or not, see if we like it. So we did a bit of brainstorming and came to the conclusion that the map is so big that the double-sentinel, the Cypher/Killjoy, is so viable. You have so much control all the time on your defensive path that you almost know where they’re going every single time.

You have one on one bombsite, one on the other. They can either come into your site and you’re going to kill them all, because that’s what the Sentinel is for. Or you have all the control on the sites and they’re on middle. And yeah, we did a bit of brainstorming there. We figured out how we wanted to play. I think Team Finest were the other team that played this comp. They moved away from it because they didn’t get on with it, they lost to Liquid I think. But we stuck out with it, we played two, maybe three, days of practice with it and we’ve been getting some really good results with it.

There wasn’t really anything to copy like a lot of other comps. It was us coming up with it as we got along. Making strats, executes, defaults, all that kind of stuff. It turned out that it’s one of our strongest maps.

Runitback: Unfortunately, with today’s loss you guys are denied the chance to make it to Masters Berlin. However, what are TENSTAR’s goals for the remainder of 2021?

Br0die: Right now, we’re going back to practice. I think there’s another event at the end of August, so in about a month away. We’ll be practicing as normal, getting ready for that. After that, I’m not really sure what there is that’s going to come up with VALORANT. I’m sure there’s going to be some tournaments announced. And we’ll be playing in whatever we can play in. So you’ll see us in all upcoming tournaments.

Runitback: On the international level is there any region or team that you’d like to square off against?

Br0die: Internationally, I’d say Sentinels. Obviously, they’re the best team in the world right now. I’d like to play them, see how they play. I know NA have a different style of play than how EU like to play. I’d like to also have another game against Fnatic in a month or two and hopefully be better than this time. The last two times we kind of dropped off since we played them. I think we peaked against Liquid, Heretics, BDS, we were playing at our best then. And against Fnatic we didn’t really show up. So, I’d like to play them on a good day and see how they cope.

*Note: Questions and answers may have been altered for the sake of fluidity and or brevity.

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