In our Player of the Month series, we introduce you to some of the best players, streamers, and content creators in Valorant. Today we’re featuring ShahZaM!

Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan is a well-known Valorant pro from North America. Similar to many other Valorant pros, ShahZam has previously played CS:GO. His competitive experience has taken him through some of the biggest events and organizations the region has had to offer. Some of the more well-known teams he has played for include TSM, Optic Gaming, Misfits, Complexity, Cloud9, and others. In late 2019, he was benched by Complexity and some time later he decided to become a free agent. Less than six months later, Riot introduced Valorant and ShahZam joined the Sentinels roster in April 2021.

I spent half of my life with CS and it will always be a big part of me. I started in the days of mIRC and played in CAL before it died. I don’t think people know how long I played. CS fans tend to be hardcore and I see a lot of hate because of the switch, but that’s okay, I understand. I feel like the whole last year of my CS career was a waste and I was very unhappy.

ShahZaM in Valorant

ShahZam was part of the first Sentinels team and over a year later he is still an important part of the team. In fact, the Sentinels only made one change to their starting lineup when Sinatraa was banned by Riot. That’s also when they signed TenZ and the team started playing even better. As if anyone thought that was possible. Overall, the move to Valorant was a great decision for ShahZaM.

He is also the in-game leader of the Sentinels and their results speak for themselves. The team has only suffered a few defeats and otherwise only won titles.

ShahZaM and Sentinels.

At this point, there is no doubt that North America is the most competitive region for Valorant. You can probably guess which team is at the top of the best region – the Sentinels.

Together with ShahZaM, the Sentinels have proven time and time again that they have what it takes. The team won the biggest international tournament, the Valorant – Stage 2 Masters Reykjavik. By starting Stage 3, the Sentinels secured first place in the first Challengers event and earned a spot directly in the Challengers Playoffs. Their ticket to the Stage 3 Masters Berlin is as good as secured. With ShahZaM as captain, not much can go wrong.

Why is ShahZaM the Valorant Player of the Month?

Like most successful Valorant pro players, ShahZaM started his pro career in CS:GO. He was part of the original Sentinels Valorant team, and together they dominated the most competitive region in the game. With ShahZaM as IGL, Sentinels managed several victories in North America and on the international stage. Last but not least, ShahZaM is also an absolute sportsman. On ShahZaM’s official Twitch channel you can watch his streams and find cool, entertaining content.

Valorant: How to put together the optimal team

Which roles do you need to fill? How do you divide up the positions? And who is the in-game leader? We have the answers!

Many roles for five positions in the team

You can roughly divide the roles and responsibilities in a team. There is the solo defender, who can hold a point alone. The Support, who makes room with skills that need to be respected. The In-Game Lead makes the calls and works with the information of his teammates. The Entry Fragger and the Secondary are the players who go together on a point and are not afraid of enemy contact. The Sniper, who preferably holds certain angles with an Operator and can get a big advantage for the round with a First Blood, can also be beneficial to the team. Last but not least, there is the Lurker, who preferably keeps opponents busy at the other end of the map and comes from an unexpected side after enemy rotations.

The individual roles can also partially overlap or can be left out entirely or can change from round to round. An in-game leader can also be a solo defender and can also focus on minimap and communication due to defensive play. A balanced team with the assignment of such roles has the advantage that the team members know what their tasks are in the current round and can thus also build on the strengths of their agents.

The Spearhead: Entry Fragger & Secondary

The Entry Fragger is optimally the first player to make contact with the opponents around the Objective being targeted by the team. This can also be an important place on a map as a defender, e.g. to gain some control over the center in Ascent. By his push he makes room for the other mates, passes on the positions of the opponents and has the chance to get the point alone by nimble kills. The best agents for this role are Phoenix and Reyna.

As a secondary, you try to build on the moves, information and kills from the entry fragger. At a certain point, it pays to take a different position, hold different angles, or get behind enemy lines very quickly to take opponents who are rotating out of the action. Jett, Raze, Omen and Breach are particularly suitable for this role.

The Solo Defender

Since most maps have 3 main lanes, only two of them can be defended with a duo, the third “lane” then belongs to the solo defender. On Attack the role is obsolete, but an agent made for this role can here protect the team from flanks or focus on making sure the spike is well placed and defend them additionally with appropriate skills. Those who like this style of play might be satisfied with Cypher, Sage and Sova.

The Support

The main task of the support player is the optimal use of his abilities to make it easier for his own team to attack a point. This includes for example optimal placement of Smokes and the use of Flashes. As supports, many agents are suitable for this role: The solo defender agents can support well in the offense to get information or to cover some angles. Other agents are suitable as supports thanks to their sight-blocking abilities, like Brimstone and Viper, which can make it very easy to access a point. But Sova or Skye are also welcome in the role, as they can scout ahead with their Recon abilities.

The In-Game Leader

No team can function without an IGL. The game starts with the operator choice: Who plays which agent? How should the team split up on the map by default? Which agents do the opponents have? What do we have to pay attention to? How do we time the round? All this information and more have to be communicated to the team. If you want to take the role of the IGL, you should look for an agent who supports this role additionally like all agents who can get additional information by ability like Cypher, Sova and Raze.

The Sniper

Do you have an operator god in your team? Then let him take the role of the Sniper. Defensively, the Sniper can hold many angles where he can stand faster than the enemy team and get free kills especially against slow peeks. If it goes a bit offensive, he tries to move out after the spearhead, gradually covering positions where opponents can come. Good agents to support the sniper’s playstyle are for example Jett to play more offensive angles without risk or Cypher who rotates to other points after building up camera and tripwires to stay unpredictable.

The Lurker

Last but not least, there are the Lone Wolfs, who don’t like to hang out with the team, also called Lurker. This role is also useful in a team to avoid giving half the map to the opponents or to get impatient opponents when they don’t expect it because they rotate through their own spawn. Omen, Reyna and Jett are especially useful for playing off the enemy team, as their abilities make them less likely to fall victim to refrags or to escape from a bad position after a successful kill.

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