North American esports organisation Sentinels have signed UK Valorant player Rory ‘dephh’ Jackson to their roster.
He joines the likes of North American players TenZ and zekken and SicK, and Brazilians Sacy and pANcada. And he will IGL (in-game leader) for the team.
Sentinels made a video announcement on their Twitter page, saying that dephh was the final piece of the puzzle in their Valorant team. Dephh said it was ‘time to work’.
Dephh is a former UK CSGO player, having played for the likes of Complexity before switching to Valorant in 2020 and playing for the likes of Dignitas and XSET, before moving to Sentinels.
He said he had burnout from CSGO and Valorant was a breath of fresh air for him.
Dephh told Sentinels content creator Tarik in a video on the official Sentinels YouTube channel: “I think Sentinels learned their lesson last year with player-run rosters and personalities, sometimes there’s clashes… I think they realised they were gonna do a new approach this year and I think that’s why I’m so excited to play for Sentinels. The management has been pretty awesome.
“I got a chance to see in CS some of the best IGLs in the world, and you can tell the impact an IGL has on a team. It kind of happened naturally for me, as an older guy.
“Our philosophy is to enjoy working and spending time with your teammates, but you’re also accountable, so it’s about setting expectations.”
Sentinels have previously had some other big names on the team such as ShahZaM, shroud and sinatraa, who stopped playing for Sentinels after being accused of sexual assault before working for Sentinels as a streamer.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
