Sentinels Sign Best Marvel Rivals Roster, but No Sign of Shroud

The Marvel Rivals arms race is heating up in North America as Sentinels finally announced its first competitive roster, surprising basically no one with the lineup.

Sentinels is a premier force in multiple other esports titles, specifically popular shooters like VALORANT and Halo. Now, the organization is bringing its name to Marvel Rivals by singing a majority of what is widely considered the strongest roster from the early competitive scene—though there are a few key question marks.

Sentinels announced that it would be entering Marvel Rivals on the esports side pretty early on, and it was an open secret that the organization was the favorite to sign the former-NTMR.

NTMR, an esports organization that operates out of Miami, fielded one of several Marvel Rivals stacks that took the early competitive scene by storm, competing in tournaments dating back to the game’s first beta and up through early February. 

Since it entered the scene, NTMR won five different events, including the Marvel Rivals Invitational for North America in December and Rivals Rumble in January. They also finished second in Marvel Rivals Championship Season 0: Dooms’ Rise, taking the winning roster, Mutants, to a final game before falling.

The main squad officially left NTMR on Feb. 10, likely when various teams and players entered discussions with esports organizations behind the scenes as reports of “big money Marvel Rivals esports coming soon” started popping up. Those same reports noted that big orgs were scrambling to sign the best early talent within the competitive scene, with the former NTMR squad presumably at the top of many of those lists.

After leaving NTMR, five players stuck together and brought on Colin “Coluge” Arai from Shikigami to enter and win Vanguardian League: Season 1, taking the grand finals over Shikigami and one of their former teammates, Ghasklin. Now, Sentinels has locked up those five previous NTMR players along with Coluge. 

The entire Sentinels roster is made up of former Overwatch pros and content creators who have made the switch to playing Marvel Rivals. Coluge is likely the most high-profile name when it comes to esports experience, having played competitive Overwatch since 2017 and with multiple years of experience in the Overwatch League on the San Francisco Shock and Toronto Defiant.

Hogz was also team captain for the winning squad in January’s controversial Marvel Rivals Showdown on Twitch Rivals event.

This play by Sentinels to sign what many fans believe to be the top roster in Marvel Rivals right as the game begins to grow as an esport might sound a bit familiar. 

Back when VALORANT esports started to pick up steam after its release in Summer 2020, Sentinels were quick to snap up a roster of talented players from other shooters that were looking to make the switch. This included various Overwatch and Counter-Strike pros, which became the norm in the early days of VAL. From there, Sentinels were able to scoop up Tenz and build one of the only rosters to bring an international Major home for North America in any esport.

Sentinels has been very deliberate in its choice of games. The organization competes in very few games and yet has built one of the largest followings in its main game, Valorant. Having capitalized on early success once before, and now signing the most prolific roster in Marvel Rivals’ nascent scene, it’s possible Sentinels is looking to repeat its Valorant success both competitively and as a brand.

Some viewers will also notice that shroud does not appear to be involved with this signing or Sentinels’ Marvel Rivals division at all. This isn’t that shocking considering the streamer’s recent comments, though the deal was a possibility.

During his Fragathon charity stream on Jan. 30, shroud “leaked” that he had at least one meeting with Sentinels following open discussions about how he wanted to field a competitive Marvel rivals team. This was mostly confirmed by Sentinels CEO Rob Moore a week later when he mentioned that something was in the works, mentioning the team was open to working with shroud in some form again in the space.

A few days later on Feb. 9, shroud’s charity stream ended with more than $1 million raised for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As a result, he doubled down on his esports goals, including creating an esports organization of some kind—with no mention of Sentinels directly. 

There is still a chance shroud partners with an existing esports org to create a partnered Marvel Rivals division. However, it is also just as likely that he works with other creators to form his own project that is focused on the game and content creation.