Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek comes out of retirement to play for Sentinels’ VALORANT team.

No it’s not a prank, announced by Sentinels earlier today, Shroud is actually coming out of retirement to compete in the North American Last Chance Qualifier for VCT Champions.

The legend returns, and he's here to win@shroud joins the Sentinels Valorant roster pic.twitter.com/VaIYTeR2nq

— Sentinels (@Sentinels) July 8, 2022

Shroud is an extremely decorated Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional player most famous for his time on Cloud9. He retired in 2017 to become a streamer for Cloud9 and blew up in popularity for his raw skill and highlights that come from his streams.

2019 saw Shroud at his peak and was signed to Microsoft’s streaming platform Mixer for a reported US$10 million deal. After Mixer shut down, Shroud returned to Twitch where he originally started out. The monumental part of this was that Microsoft were still obligated to pay Shroud for the entirety of his contract.

Sentinels announced the signing on their Twitter while Shroud was streaming. Clips have surfaced on YouTube as Shroud reacts to the announcement and also gives a little bit of insight as to what his plans are going forward and how he’s going to prepare.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Sentinels’ current roster situation, having done poorly over the past couple of tournaments and recently picked up Eric “Kanpeki” Xu as their newest addition. Since then, Sentinels’ flex player Hunter “SicK” Mims has come out and said that he’s been dealing with his mental health and does not want to burden the team, hence he will not be participating in the LCQ.

I've been struggling with my mental health over the past month or so. But I'm feeling much better now, thank you everyone for the support. I will hopefully return to competitive play soon. Also of course there will be monthly streams!!

— Hunter Mims (@SicK_cs) June 20, 2022

As a result Sentinels have picked up Shroud in place of SicK for the VCT Champions NA LCQ. On stream he elaborated that he will be playing controller for most maps and that he will be grinding everyday to make sure his skills are up-to-par. Shroud also went on to mention that Sentinels will also be attending a boot camp. A boot camp is essentially when a team will go to a designated location to train and build team cohesion.

Sentinels did also do an interview with Shroud following the announcement where a lot of questions are answered so feel free to check that out below. As for the LCQ itself, I know many of you will be itching to see Shroud play on the main stage again. We currently don’t know much about the LCQ other than the teams participating and that it will take place sometime next month in August. Once we get more information be sure to check us out as we will be covering everything leading up to the VCT Champions.