Sentinels' Valorant star SicK extends his leave, coach Rawkus replaces him on active roster for rest of the VCT Challengers

Fans of Sentinels will have to say goodbye to their hopes of watching SicK in the rest of the Valorant Champions Tour Stage 2 Challengers. Hunter “SicK” Mims joined the Sentinel’s Valorant roster in April 2020. Since then, he has played a vital role in the Sentinel’s team, even winning the first-ever Valorant Champions Tour Masters.

Hunter "SicK" Mims (born September 2, 1998) is a retired American professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player. He announced his retirement from the professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene on April 21, 2020, in favor of pursuing a career in Valorant. A week later, he was signed by Sentinels, where he reunited with former Misfits, TSM, and Complexity teammate, Shahzeeb "ShahZaM" Khan.

SicK is also known as the secondary duelist in the team, right after TenZ. He is widely regarded as one of the best "flex" players who can play different roles well in Valorant. This means his team can play different setups and the opponent cannot be sure about which agent or setup they are coming in with.

Sentinels have announced that SicK will be taking extended leave due to an ongoing family matter, which means he won’t be available to play during the rest of the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers. The North American side also revealed that coach Rawkus would be taking SicK's spot on the roster.

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Sentinels announce coach Rawkus will replace SicK for the rest of the Valorant Champions Tour

On June 2, Sentinels announced through their official Twitter handle that "Hunter “SicK” Mims will be taking an extended leave of absence to attend to an on-going family matter." They’ve also announced that Sentinel’s Head Coach, Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty, will be replacing SicK for the remaining matches in the Valorant Champions Tour North America Stage 2 Challengers Series.

SicK missed out on the match against the current champions OpTic Gaming during Week 3 of the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers Group Stage of Masters Reykjavik 2022. The team had to play with two subs after Tyson “TenZ” Ngo also missed the game due to COVID-19 infection, and as a result, the team lost 2-0 to OpTic.

Sentinels have announced that Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty will stand-in for the rest of the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers. The former giants of the North American Valorant circle have recently been out of luck. Sentinels are yet to win a match in the VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers Group Stage.

They now find themselves 0-3 down in the group stage with losses against Luminosity, Evil Geniuses, and OpTic. Sentinels are currently in a must-win scenario and will have to win against FaZe and Cloud9 in order to make it to the Valorant Champions Tour NA playoffs.

Even then, Sentinels have to depend on certain scenarios that need to come to fruition. Quite unfortunately for the North American giants, they have to achieve this without TenZ and SicK in the team.

The best-case scenario for Sentinels would be that Evil Geniuses and Luminosity win their respective games against FaZe and Cloud9 Gaming. This would allow Sentinels to overtake FaZe Clan and Cloud9 Gaming with a 2-3 record, compared to their 1-4 match record.

A tiebreaker involving more than three teams would be settled based on the map win percentage during the group stage, the round win percentage, and the team seeding prior to the group stage of the VCT NA Stage 2 Challenger Series.

The fourth and fifth-placed teams would then have to play a best-of-three tiebreaker match, with the winner claiming fourth place. All hope is not lost for Sentinels yet, as TenZ will make a return on June 5 to play FaZe and Cloud9 on June 13.