VCT NA Stage 2 Sentinels vs T1 pause shines spotlight on Valorant UI

One of the top North American Valorant squads, Sentinels, has a roughy time in the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Stage 2 Challengers 1 qualifier, getting knocked out by BBG. However, the team got another shot to make it to the Challengers Finals via the VCT Stage 2 Challengers 2 qualifier. In an all-important match for the North American squad against T1, a 30-minute pause ordeal took place, which has shined a spotlight on the Valorant UI.

T1 vs Sentinels VCT pause: A Valorant UI flaw?

In the first round of the Upper Bracket of VCT NA Stage 2 Challengers 2 qualifier, Sentinels got knocked down by AndBox. In the following elimination match, Sentinels faced off against T1.

In this all-important match for both Valorant squads, a massive 30-minute pause occurred. This pause was, in essence, due to user error, with a tournament admin clicking "End Game Phase" instead of issuing a tactical pause.

(Picture: Riot Games)

A tactical pause is, of course, a short pause that teams can request to discuss strategies. In Valorant, as you can see in the image above, the End Game Phase button is exceptionally close to the button where you toggle on the Pause Match Timer.

This led to an admin accidentally ending the match, wish forced a manual input of money, stats, guns, and more, delaying the Sentinels vs T1 match by 30 minutes.

Rod "Slasher" Breslau took to Twitter to report and explain the incident, with the Principal Software Engineer from the developer, Riot Nu, responding to say "thanks for this very good bug report".

(Picture: Twitter)

In an extremely important esports match between some big teams, stress levels can get high, and not just for the players.

Tournament admins should not need to be this careful, as the buttons are simply placed way too close to one another.

It remains to be seen if Riot Games will deploy a fix, moving the buttons further away as soon as possible. Hopefully, this doesn't happen during the VCT again soon, as a 30-minute pause can definitely break the flow of the game.

• Read more: TenZ to remain with Sentinels until VCT Challengers Finals

Sentinels ended up winning the match against T1 after the extended pause. Despite T1 winning the first map, Sentinels fought back to close out the series with a 2-1 map score, moving on to the next round of the VCT Stage 2 Challengers 2 qualifier.