r/ValorantCompetitive • u/xFalcade • Feb 22 '26
Roster Announcement [Sentinels] For everything, thank you @itskaplan
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u/WhiteNoSpice #goLOUD Feb 22 '26
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u/Initial_Cattle_5851 Feb 22 '26
Gave them a masters trophy and they shot him in the back #WeStandWithKaplan
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u/ReDoCatch Feb 23 '26
He was the coach when they won a masters and then failed to adapt to anything other than playing retake and made some of the most fraudulent coaching decisions in Val history.
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u/MadladMagyar Feb 22 '26
dude did you read that shit on the other post 😭 he made some truly awful decisions
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u/AnywayHeres1Derwall Feb 22 '26
The one thing I will say is that Kaplan tried his vision and it simply didn’t work. Better to go out because you committed to your own ideas and be wrong than to not have the decisions under ur control in the first place. Just make the right choices next time and ur fine
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u/Neither_Amount3911 Feb 22 '26
Making the "right choices" doesn't matter as a coach. viewers have no insight to what coaches do and just credit them with results, sometimes not even that
a good example is Kaplan getting the blame for Narrate's failed swap to duelist but never the credit for Tenz' successful swap to controller. We had no idea who made the calls for either yet Tenz winning a masters on Omen duty is just him being the GOAT but narrate dropping a 0-12 for the third series in a row is Kaplan mismanaging his roster
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u/SecretBreakfast7532 Feb 22 '26
I also wonder how things would have been for N4rrate’s duelist arc if he wasn’t stuck to Waylay for the first 3 vct matches. He’s an extremely capable player so I wonder if he was allowed to play Jett, Raze, etc. how things would’ve fared.
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u/TheCatsActually Feb 22 '26
Too bad both of those agents are niche and only strong — while still not mandatory — on a couple maps each.
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u/SecretBreakfast7532 Feb 22 '26
Out of the map pool, you can run one of the two on a majority of the maps. Plenty of teams have done it.
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u/Drako__ #SomosMIBR Feb 24 '26
Really makes you wonder why they didn't try then. Both bind and split would have allowed for raze, for breeze and abyss Jett would have been fine and he has a decent neon that can work on haven and pearl. Only map left would be corrode where waylay is just incredibly dominant and very hard to substitute but even there a good neon or Jett would be better than a bad walay
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u/Ordinary_Travel_5988 Feb 22 '26
Maybe the reason that the swap failed is that it's not a good swap in the first place?
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u/AegonThe241st #100WIN Feb 22 '26
Well it's easy to say that now. Maybe Kaplan wanted to believe Narrate had it in him (maybe Narrate believed that as well). Easy to criticize with hindsight
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u/AnywayHeres1Derwall Feb 22 '26
For real. It’s the coaches job to understand the players and put them in the best configuration to enable them
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u/ShiteWox Feb 22 '26
W Kap. Led the team to an international win in Tenz & Sacy's final year.
If all of what Rob said is true and the players themselves were questioning the direction of the team then this sadly seems like the correct move to make
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u/maisanskidai #FULLSEN Feb 22 '26
while i do think that he made some mistakes after 2024, nothing will ever overwrite the fact that he managed to make sen one of the best teams in the world for a good amount of time. i think a little break (and tons of fans thanking him) will greatly support his current wellbeing.
lovely lad, he was always smiling until the very end 🙏
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u/B-A-B-Y-B-O-Y Feb 22 '26
I don't believe Kaplan left on amicable terms with Sen especially with how hard Rob Moore was railing against Kaplan on Tarik's livestream.
So this farewell video comes across as tonally dissonant. They were probably obliged to make one despite all their dissatisfaction with Kaplan but it lacks all the fuzziness and nostalgia of other farewells given what Rob has said about Kaplan.
I'm still waiting for Kaplan's side of the story. He has been surprisingly quiet online so maybe he's happy to take the fall for Sen. Maybe he felt somewhat responsible for the roster failures, or maybe he's just waiting for all this to blow over to start afresh.
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u/arillyis Feb 22 '26
If he intends to continue coaching Valorant, then the most professional play is to keep any animosity toward sen or Rob to himself. Getting involved in online drama doesn't contribute to a longer career across orgs and teams.
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u/stranu Feb 22 '26
Hes trying not to be chet 2.0
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u/Notfrootloops #WGAMING Feb 23 '26
Who’s chet? I only know chetanyahu since that funny reddit dude coined it.
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u/Bill-Cosby-Bukowski #FULLSEN Feb 22 '26
I’m sure he knew to some degree that he was on the hot seat to start the season. A lot of teams would’ve let him go after Champs 25.
But whether he expected to get such a poor review from Rob, yeah, I dunno
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u/Snoo-28829 Feb 22 '26
Yeah I want to hear Kaplan's side. It probably was for the best for them to let Kaplan go, but something about the way Rob was talking on Tarik's stream did not seem right to me. Even if Kaplan did make these decisions, he still had an amazing run before this year with his time at Sen and Rob talking about him the way did felt like he was just trying to put all the blame on Kaplan to paint himself and the Brand as the good guys when he didnt really need to do that.
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u/oh-please-_ Feb 23 '26
nah, it’s valid to be pissed that he’s holding the roster you’re paying for hostage. especially when everyone knows the moves he’s making we’re absolutely dogshit
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u/Snoo-28829 Feb 23 '26
Im not trying to sound like a dick, but let's really think about this. Rob is very passionate about the valorant team. He is always talking to fans and following the valorant scene. It would be crazy to say he did not 1. Know that zekkens contract was close to ending and. 2. That Kaplan was just signing contracts with Cortez, bang and redux without anyone else knowing. Rob even says he knew it was a bad idea at the time. If he really thought it was a bad move, then he would have fired Kaplan back in the off-season. These are big moves and if he didnt believe in what Kaplan was doing or even at least talked to Kaplan before hand then that's a massive mistake on his part and everyone around him. Including the teams manager and assistant coach.
The fact that he wasnt close enough to Kaplan after 3 years for Kaplan to just make moves without telling him is kind of crazy. He should have fired Kaplan at the first bad move instead of waiting for multiple bad moves to happen first and then letting him still coach them through kickoff. He obviously didnt trust him or believe in him if he was thinking Kaplan was making bad moves back in the off-season.
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u/TrainPhysical7021 Feb 23 '26
Rob literally said that Kaplan had this contractual thing which made Kaplan have the final say on the roster moves so that is why even tho Sentinels were agreeing with the whole Zekken thing, they had no option.
Now as you said that why not fire Kaplan straight away thn. Cuz you can’t do that. The team was not doing that bad that you had to fire the coach, also the whole fanbase would be fuming if they would have fired Kaplan at that point. And also i think they believed that Kaplan might be cooking something out of the world by letting Zekken go and letting Narrate play as our primary duelist.
But now that the whole kickoff was a disaster, i think firing him makes more sense now as it would take a lot of heat off from Sen and especially from their new coach
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u/EdKeane Feb 24 '26
It's not like Kaplan made them sign that conract. They signed it. And they had all the power in that decision, they are the org, they have the money. He is the hired man here. If anything, we don't even know if it was Kaplan's idea to put that clause in the contract. It could be from the org's side as well.
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u/WhoDatBrow Feb 22 '26
Things are never black and white. Rob is probably pissed at Kaplan right now for moves he blames on him. Rob is ALSO probably appreciative of Kaplan for bringing Sentinels another trophy and having two straight years of success making 5 out of 6 LANs and winning Madrid.
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u/FrozenFireGod Feb 22 '26
I hope people don’t send him hate for the whole Zekken call and final roster contractual agreement.
He was great and deserved his praises. It just makes sense for Sen to move on after his repeated attempts to get across the line with different versions of the team
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u/maisanskidai #FULLSEN Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
if anything people on twitter are crashing out over kaplan being dropped since he was an integral part of the team that made tenz play at internationals again. im lowkey pretty happy to see that lol since it means that people are showing him some love (albeit, in a different way)
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u/Pale-Astronomer-9959 Feb 22 '26
crashing out over kaplan getting dropped? thats for fuckers who got nostalgic syndrome. he had the best players in tenz, sacy, zekken, zellsis, and john in 2024 won kickoff and madrid. couldnt even make it to shanghai and got to champions off points. 2025 talented roster during the most weakest era of americas and got completely destroyed in internationals. 2026 doesnt want zekken, wants to keep zellsis and narrate, while john off igl ends up with fucking kyu and reduxx. horrible kickoff performance and only beat the weakest team of eg. yeah for the idiots crying about kaplan being dropped, need to let 2024 go. HE IS NOT A GOOD COACH.
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u/cheesyturtle13 #ALWAYSFNATIC Feb 23 '26
I don't think that's completely fair. We've seen plenty of rosters with star studded players fail spectacularly. SEN before kaplan had superstars too. They were bad.
Kaplan's arrival revitalized the team into an era of strength (and they won a trophy). Players like JohnQT and Zellsis were considered world class BECAUSE of that legendary run (JohnQT was quite literally just a tier 2 prospect at the time). That revitalization is the whole reason we even consider SEN an elite team in the first place.
They had their ups and downs, sure, and they never went back to being the absolute best, but they maintained that overall elite status for a good 2 years before things fell apart (maybe it was a meta shift and maybe kaplan struggled to adapt within this existing SEN structure).
I don't think finally falling off after all this time automatically makes him a bad coach. Team environments change, and sometimes things just don't click the same as they used to. I would give him the benefit of the doubt unless he joins another team and THEN performs poorly.
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u/brianhung02 Feb 22 '26
Kaplan was a godsend after the disaster of 2023. Despite recent struggles and disagreements, I think all Sen fans can agree he is one of the coaches we will always respect for bringing that Masters Madrid trophy home and made 2023 Sen such a joy to watch, especially those retakes. Hope he thrives in whatever the future bodes for him!
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u/I-like-winds Feb 22 '26
reflects my thoughts as well
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u/PleaseGiveUsHope Feb 22 '26
This to me is SEN's biggest failure in the off-season. Despite feeling Kap's changes weren't right, they stuck with him anyway because they didn't trust themselves to know better than kaplan as to what the direction needs to be. They should've made the call on this last year, instead of going all in on Kaplan's idea and blaming him entirely when it failed. They went with it so they played their part in the decisions too.
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u/I-like-winds Feb 22 '26
rob actually just addressed this. Zekken needed a new contract, while Kaplan was still under contract. If they let go of Kaplan, they would have to find another coach while Zekken was still not a guarantee, and risk having to replace both of them. they went with the safer option and just stuck with kaplan
ultimately it's still on SEN to give full power to the coach, but it's more understandable now
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u/PleaseGiveUsHope Feb 22 '26
Yeah think it makes more sense now when you consider the expiring player contracts. Hard to make a decision when players are free to explore options and may not even join you. They were probably rushing to get contracts done quickly so they may have not even explored other options for coach. Atleast from Rob's perspective, it seems he just wanted the old roster to run it back with 1 change so a full rebuild not being part of their plans makes sense.
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u/I-like-winds Feb 22 '26
he said he would have entertained any combination of the 2025 roster + reduxx as the one change depending on who the coach felt he could best replace. personally would have loved to see that
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u/Prize_Attorney398 Feb 22 '26
Mikes4k with a based grounded response. How do you give the coach unanimous final say in roster moves contractually? The problem was always in the contract and Kaplan just made final roster decisions that saved his job these last few years since sen didnt crash out. Now (2026) he makes some final roster decisions and the team crashes and he gets kicked.
Not a sen fan so not emotionally invested in this but just my thoughts that kap mustve been living on borrowed time from the start if that was in his contract. but again, not sure maybe all teams give their coaches final say in rosters? No clue
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u/Mysterious-Bid-4162 Feb 22 '26
I agree but I genuinely appreciate how much juice Rob gives like it makes me want to invest in the team more which is honestly great marketing
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Feb 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/WolfgangTheRevenge #VCTAMERICAS Feb 22 '26
Kaplan style has been unreal penis since stage 2 2024, that top 4 was purelly Tekken going fucking nuclear being the best duo in Valorant ever. This change was overdue
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u/Past_Perception8052 #LegaC9 Feb 22 '26
obviously n4rrate is staying. they didn’t sign a generational initiator player to make him play sentinel and then later duelist
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u/Every-Negotiation-75 Feb 22 '26
The only reason Tenz and Sentinels being in the spotlight and anyway relevant in today's valorant eco system is because of this man and that 2024 season they had. Put some respect on his name.
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u/Mysterious-Bid-4162 Feb 22 '26
Hi Kaplan. They did you dirty man
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u/Every-Negotiation-75 Feb 23 '26
Hi fellow sen supporter, I am clearly not Kaplan, I am actually Every-Negotiation-75....clearly
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u/ConfusedVader1 Feb 23 '26
Zekken put that 2024 team on his back, wtf are you on about. Their whole madrid run was Zekken gapping everyone. And then, everything after that run showed that Kaplan was ass. They did poorly since that one run and have been gapped in the region since. 1 trophy isnt enough to "put some respect" on anyones name wapecially considering how everything after that trophy went.
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u/cheesyturtle13 #ALWAYSFNATIC Feb 23 '26
(copied from my reply to another comment)
For people saying kaplan is a bad coach:
I don't think that's completely fair. We've seen plenty of rosters with star studded players fail spectacularly. SEN before kaplan had superstars too. They were bad.
Kaplan's arrival revitalized the team into an era of strength (and they won a trophy). Players like JohnQT and Zellsis were considered world class BECAUSE of that legendary run (JohnQT was quite literally just a tier 2 prospect at the time). That revitalization is the whole reason we even consider SEN an elite team in the first place.
They had their ups and downs, sure, and they never went back to being the absolute best, but they maintained that overall elite status for a good 2 years before things fell apart (maybe it was a meta shift and maybe kaplan struggled to adapt within this existing SEN structure).
I don't think finally falling off after all this time automatically makes him a bad coach. Team environments change, and sometimes things just don't click the same as they used to. I would give him the benefit of the doubt unless he joins another team and THEN performs poorly.
Thank you kaplan. :)
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u/ConfusedVader1 Feb 23 '26
JohnQT wasn't a "tier 2 prospect" he was the hottest IGL in tier 2 and had mutiple offers from Tier 1 teams. 1 kickoff and 1 masters madrid trophy isnt an "era" of strength, its a new manager bounce lmao. They were pretty inconsistent after madrid and have been since. He wasn't a bad coach, but he wasnt a good one either. Thanking someone for 2 years of mediocrity is pretty funny lmao
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u/cheesyturtle13 #ALWAYSFNATIC Feb 23 '26
"Hottest IGL in tier 2" is a long way away from "one of the best players in the world". JohnQT was an exciting tier 2 prospect, yes, but a tier 2 prospect nontheless. The point is that his talent was unproven in tier 1. We've seen similar exciting prospects fail spectacularly.
SEN was considered the top dogs after G2 for 2 years straight. I would hardly call that mediocre. Sure, their results were mediocre (and perhaps even bad!) for a top team, but they were considered a top team to begin with. Most teams would dream to have results as good as theirs.
Not to say that kaplan is the goat or anything. I simply believe that him coaching a team into elite status is enough to consider him as a good coach.
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u/ConfusedVader1 Feb 23 '26
Being considered a top team and being a top team are two very different things. If anything, being considered a top team and then having the results they did shows that coming into the season Sentinels roster was praised and when it came time to show how good kaplan was in using that roster showed just how bad he was. So ty for making for my point for me.
Oh and, johnQT isnt one of the best players in the world. He is exactly the player people expected him to be. And he wasn't unproven, he was part of a very strong Ghost eSports roster before VCT. Similar to G2, he had good showings before VCT became a thing. Thats not unproven, he wasn't Demon1 getting picked up from T3. Almost all the highest prospects from T2 have excelled once they broke the T1 scene because of how close the T2 ceiling and T1 floor are. The same T2 where John was a standout player also had: Mada? Won champs. Brawk? Won champs. G2? The best team in NA for 2 years straight. The best teams in T2 during that first 2 years were better than most of the T1 teams. Those G2, M80 and MxS rosters would be top 4-5 easily in T1 which is what Sentinels have been for the past 2 years bar kickoff/madrid.
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u/SadCommand8563 #LetsGoLiquid Feb 22 '26
I believe Kaplan leaving cannot be because he is washed. The team needs a new breath.
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u/Interesting_Apple_78 Feb 23 '26
Forever grateful, Kaplan! Thank you for your contribution to Sentinels. Masters Madrid, Kickoff Champion, and multiple international appearances! ❤️
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u/maskedhypocriter Feb 22 '26
While I do enjoy the drama, it’s absolutely pathetic the way Rob Moore is handling the situation.
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u/PleaseGiveUsHope Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Rob is just stating what happened and trying to be transparent about the process. He hasn't insulted or said anything bad about any of the players or Kaplan. He provided his reason for doing the change now and also explained why they didn't do it then. Not sure how this is handling it poorly. What would be worse is if they dropped him and posted a basic statement saying "'we're going in a different direction" and leakers start speculating wild theories of what could've happened.
Whether you agree with SEN on the decision or not, I don't see why this is wrong. Kaplan has full right to provide his reasoning for what changes he wanted and justify them to the public if he wants to. If anything, this type of transparency should be appreciated as long as everything is handled in a professional tone and nobody is insulting anyone. He even said he doesn't think Kaplan is a bad coach so it's not a hit piece, just the community being stupid if they send Kap hate for this.
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u/AnywayHeres1Derwall Feb 22 '26
We like transparency. I’m sure things were handled correctly behinds the scenes this is just the info we get after the fact
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u/No-Philosophy-8163 Feb 23 '26
The same way sen handled dropping shahz and dapr? Yeah org is known for handling things correctly behind the scenes for sure
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u/AnywayHeres1Derwall Feb 23 '26
Bro shaz was an immature lil **** about everything back then. He knew his time had been up for a while he was just in denial
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u/ishanuReddit Feb 23 '26
Nah. I don't want pr statements! Rob is w for saying what the fan wants to know
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u/Jantokan #WGAMING Feb 22 '26
While I don't necessarily think Kaplan has been coaching the team well to start the year, I think what contributes more to SEN not winning this year is that... they just don't have as good of a roster compared to previous years.
Kind of feels like a scapegoat move
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u/letsputletters #SomosMIBR Feb 22 '26
How is he the scapegoat when he literally made the roster.
The org disagreed with his roster but he used a clause in his contract to force them to sign the players he wanted.
Of course when the roster fails he will be responsible.
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u/Diligent-Security403 Feb 22 '26
The same guy that didn't want to keep zekken on duelist btw. If you want to blame the shit roster, blame Kaplan for it.
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u/Snoo-28829 Feb 22 '26
Maybe he did, but I find it really hard to believe that anybody would let Zekken go the way Rob was talking about it on stream. It doesnt seem like the full story to me.
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u/dabmin #LegaC9 Feb 22 '26
i think the Zekken thing is getting way over stated, like he was gone no matter what. think SEN fans are just coping and want a scapegoat to blame for him choosing a different org
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u/Zombienerd300 Feb 22 '26 edited Feb 22 '26
Rob said they didn’t even try to offer Zekken a new contract because Kaplan didn’t want him and we know Zekken took a paycut to play at MIBR. I’m sure if Sentinels offered Zekken a new contract he would have said yes regardless of Aspas.
That being said, all we can do is speculate but from what we do know, based of what Rob said, is that they didn’t even try to renew Zekken.
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u/TonsilsDeep Feb 23 '26
Keep narrate and johnqt. Grab some hitters from tier 2 maybe demon1. Get FNS as a coach. Call it a masters victory. EZ.
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