Professional player and former OpTic Gaming member - Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker, confirmed rumors that after the team's breakup, he received an offer to join the Sentinels. He shared this information in an interview with British analyst Duncan “Thorin” Shields.

According to the player, after OpTic Gaming dissolved their roster, due to not making it into Riot Games' partner league, he received an invitation from the American organization Sentinels, with an offer to join the main roster. After a poor season, Sentinels parted ways with most of their players, which is why they invited yay to the team, as an experienced player and winner of many major tournaments. Jaccob himself refused the offer and today explained why. According to him, the organization planned to create a completely new team, and yay himself does not like to participate in such.

It often happens that a lot of changes need to be made and a lot of time is needed to find a good team core. You rarely see that roster rebuilding happens with very few changes and it instantly becomes successful. Perhaps, Vitality in CS:GO and LOUD are good examples but they are exceptions. In most cases, rebuilding a team from scratch is a long-term process. Essentially, Sentinels were trying to create a team from scratch. I've done several roster rebuilds, and I'm not a big fan of such. I wanted to find a formed core and a team that could afford to pay my buyout, and Cloud9 was one of my only options.

Recall that after refusing to go to Sentinels, yay signed a contract with another American organization, Cloud9. After spending more than 5 months on the team, Jaccob was unable to win any championship titles, and the only achievement for the team was the 9-16th place at VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo.

Also read: The head coach of Sentinels spoke about the future of the team.