‘I think Clove is by far the most fun agent to play in ranked right now’ – Interview with Sentinels Assistant Coach Drew ‘DrewSpark’ Spark-Whitworth

After securing the title at Masters Madrid, Sentinels have begun their VCT 2024: Americas Stage 1 on an even footing. Jack Freeman spoke with Scottish Assistant Coach, Drew ‘DrewSpark’ Spark-Whitworth about their journey from Rainbow Six Seige to Valorant esports and how the two titles compare, honouring his Scottish roots at Masters Madrid, and thoughts on the latest Scottish agent, Clove.

Recently DrewSpark took the title at VCT 2024: Masters Madrid with the rest of his team, Sentinels. During the tournament, support for him grew from the UK fans as they progressed into the playoffs.

However, it was the Scottish fans who praised his success with the likes of Scottish esports talent billieidk and KairoCasts taking to social media to celebrate.

In response to this, he said: “I won’t lie, I’ll never get used to having fans. No one is really travelling out [to tournaments] to see me unless it’s my family. But it’s nice to have people from my own country recognise the work that I do which is mostly invisible and behind the scenes as well.

“It’s not my job to take the spotlight [but] it is always really nice when I get recognised through social media or at the event as well. It’s always a very surreal experience for me but definitely a positive one.”

DrewSpark also gained attention during Masters Madrid for wearing a kilt on stage, later responding on social media to explain that it represented his family tree as well as his Scottish heritage.

Following up on this he explained: “It’s just nice to represent my family because they’ve enabled a lot of everything I’ve done in life when it comes to various career paths that I’ve wanted to go down, including esports. Especially during the pandemic when times were really hard so it’s nice to be able to bring them on stage with me.”

On the topic of Scotland and Valorant, it was revealed during Masters Madrid that the Scottish troublemaker Clove would be the latest agent to join Valorant’s culturally diverse roster.

DrewSpark shared his thoughts on Clove saying: “It caught me by surprise as much as anyone else but I was definitely delighted to see a Scottish agent in the game and I love the design as well.

“I think Clove is by far the most fun agent to play in ranked right now, especially if you’re a support player. It allows you to inherently play supportive with your smokes and some few set-up utilities, but it also gives you the ability to take over rounds in a Reyna-esque way.

“You don’t have this shadow hanging over you of, “I can’t die because then I don’t have my utility”. And that’s something that makes Clove really unique to the game and in a ranked setting it’s just perfect because it allows you to have the freedom to do things that you want without having to worry about letting down your team.

“I’ve basically one tricked Clove, since Clove came out.”

Before his rise to fame in the Madrid Arena, DrewSpark was once an analyst in Rainbow Six Seige, before switching to Valorant with former team XSET.

Reflecting on his career in Rainbow Six Seige esports he said: “Unfortunately, with my help, [XSET] weren’t able to get the results we wanted. We ended up in the relegation match and we ended up going down actually in that relegation match.

“It was a pretty low point for all of us involved of course. However, it was honestly perfect timing for me individually because the work I was doing with the [Rainbow Six] team was recognised by the organisation.”

Following up on Rainbow Six Seige esports, he suggested: “I’m not going to claim to be an expert on the high-level minutiae of the game anymore, but I still enjoy watching the game. I think it’s one of a kind and it’s a great esport that just needs a little more support.”

Further elaborating: “It needs more support from the developer. I think Ubisoft are a little fresh to running an esport but it has been 8/9 years now. I’d love to see in the future, maybe completely revamp the game like Overwatch did or make some big step towards supporting the esports ecosystem.

“It would go a long way because the only thing that holds back Rainbow from being a tier one esport is the game itself. There could be a lot more added to the esports experience to take it to the next level.”

The next Rainbow Six Major is set to take place next month at the end of May at the BEC Arena, Manchester.

Talking about publishers supporting their esports scene, Riot Games has added esports team bundles into Valorant. They allow fans to purchase in-game content based on their favourite team with some of the revenue going directly to the teams.

For Sentinels the motto ‘buy the bundle’ quickly took off in DrewSpark had this to say: “I’m happy that Riot puts more of an emphasis on developing its esports side. Just having a skin in the game for an organisation is a big deal.

“It’s more money to the publisher and it’s a very easy way to keep the esports interest from the [esports] organisation perspective.”

Some other examples of similar revenue models include team stickers in Counter-Strike and team icons in League of Legends. For the latter, the success of the team bundles will not have gone unnoticed as Riot Games has already proposed implementing a VCT-like model to the LoL esports scene.

To cap everything off, DrewSpark had these final words to say: “Shoutout to the support I’ve had recently. I’m kinda learning to deal with it in a professional manner but I do appreciate all the support. Shout out to my family as always for being a big part of that too.”

Right now DrewSpark and Sentinels are 2-2 in their campaign of VCT: Americas Stage 1 to qualify for Masters Shanghai.

Read the latest about Valorant esports including the new mural to Clove in Edinburgh here.