"My stories never have good endings but hopefully I’ll be able to write a story that has one soon." - Sayf's journey into competitive VALORANT

As we approach VCT 2023 and reminisce on the competitive scene over the previous years, a few names stand out in a brighter spotlight than their counterparts. Amongst the players on the top of this list is Saif "Sayf" Jibraeel, the former in-game leader of Guild Esports and now a part of Team Liquid’s roster for the upcoming season.

Despite being unable to emerge as the title team in any of the major tournaments, his impact on the team’s performance and contribution to all the success they experienced cannot be overlooked. We reached out to Sayf himself to get a deeper understanding of his transition to VALORANT and the subsequent journey.

Transition to VALORANT

Sayf began his esports journey in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive by participating in several cups and lower tier tournaments including the ESEA Premiership league (the one below ESL Pro League) for a few seasons. During this time, he played under different banners, most notably including fight club and Team Singularity. He started experimenting with competitive VALORANT due to the influence of Yacine, who had reached out to and asked him to try it out eventually leading to the formation of BONK’s core, Sayf’s first VALORANT team.

As Riot was nurturing its competitive scene, BONK experienced early success with several 2nd place finishes in the Ignition Series that Riot organized in late 2020. Transitioning from CS:GO to VALORANT wasn’t an easy decision for him. Here’s what he said regarding his though process during this decision:

“I was slightly hesitant as I have never been the type of person to do things without having backup plans and even backup plans for the backup plans. Obviously I wasn’t initially as passionate for VALORANT as CS:GO had roots from my childhood that could never be severed. However, the decision seemed easier once I had come to realize that esports is where I belonged, and that Riot could provide me what Valve never did (a fresh slate) and a chance at the top.”

After starting out with BONK, Sayf left for NIP marking his first experience with a tier 1 organization. However, that eventually ended up being a short-lived stint as he returned to BONK’s core, this time under the Guild Esports banner. Despite being chosen as the final piece of the roster amongst such a diverse talent pool, he was confident and thrived under pressure in successive tournaments. In retrospect, he credits his endurance to overthinking and a high self-esteem as being largely responsible for managing the pressure and using it as fuel to amp him up.

“Even if I hadn’t made it in Guild, I was confident enough in my ability to get into other teams.”

VCT 2021

Despite their absence from all international events in VCT 2021, they had several fascinating and unexpected performances. They qualified for Stage 1 Masters and managed to finish 3rd amongst the best EMEA teams at the time. In Stage 2, they made the Challengers Playoffs after a 2nd place in the Main Event and would’ve made it to Masters Reykjavik had they managed to overcome Oxygen Esports in the decider match.

Stage 3 bore a similar fate for the team as they qualified once again for the Challengers as a poor main event performance prevented their entry into Masters Berlin but circuit points came to a late rescue and a final opportunity to make it to the Champions with the Last Chance Qualifiers. They made it to the event’s Grand Finals but couldn’t capitalize and this loss concluded their VCT season. Consequently, the organization decided in favour of a roster revamp for the upcoming season.

"(VCT 2021) was a great opportunity for us to learn from our mistakes during the year and how we can move forward in the next. I felt like there was a lot more fuel from my teammates, but it seemed like the organization didn’t believe in the pace we were improving at, which was understandable.”

VCT 2022

During the off-season, the team held trials to finalize its roster centered around Sayf and Leo. Due to his experience with the team, his input on players influenced the decision of bringing on koldamenta, Russ, and trexx. The roster did not have to wait long to see fruits of their labor as the team aced their way through the Stage 1 qualifiers.

At the Main Event, they were able to sneak their way into the Playoffs but faced elimination immediately afterwards. Stage 2 produced a considerably more jovial outcome with a 1st place finish in Groups. Despite, a Lower Bracket finals elimination, they landed themselves a spot at their first LAN event: Masters Copenhagen. Once again, they were able to make it out of the group stage but couldn’t string together a substantial run deeper into the tournament.

"(Copenhagen) was great, and yes my experience in CS:GO from bad computers, shitty mousepads, no table space, and the overwhelming reek of sweat definitely made a difference in terms of comfort with a setup completely foreign to me. Upon losing, I took longer packing my gear to savor the moment in my memory so I could be motivated enough to return here and experience the same feeling again.”

Although their loss at Copenhagen placed them in an unfortunate situation for a Champions qualification spot, they were still in contention with the remaining Last Chance Qualifiers. Unfortunately, fate wasn’t on their side and they ended their run with a 5th-6th place at the event.

“We didn’t get the player we wanted for LCQ, it was rough. No teamplay could have saved that. But I think it’s the best we could have done given the situation we were put in. I think I felt a little sad as I knew it was all going to come to an end. My stories never have good endings but hopefully I’ll be able to write a story that has one soon. Saying bye to the people I’ve worked with for a long time and especially the only person that has stuck with me since the first day in BONK, Leo, is saddening.”

Off-season

With Riot releasing details for franchising and the division of international teams into three leagues, a plethora of players entered Free Agency hoping to be picked up by those teams. Due to the enormous talent pool, earning a spot was far from guaranteed.

“I wasn’t confident at all; in fact I had already planned to start studying again in case it never worked out for me. I never like to look at myself too highly and being a duelist, my chances were far more elusive since all the top teams already had decent players filling that role.”

Nonetheless, VCT 2022 wasn’t the end of Sayf’s esports career as Team Liquid saw his potential and decided to pursue his talents for their finalized roster.

“It felt like the ideology resembled my own. I want to be able to make meaningful bonds with my teammates and co-workers. My goal is not only winning trophies but to be consistently consistent, and that’s how we see it in Liquid.”

What do the numbers say?

Being selected for a franchised team from a saturated Free Agency itself speaks volumes about the player’s performance but everyone loves metrics and THESPIKE.GG excels in parsing them into a comprehensible format. Here are some notable stats for Sayf throughout his competitive career most notably including an Average 1.14 rating on 232 ACS with 1.29 KDR.

However, the most notable achievement I credit to Sayf is his consistent placement at the top of the stats leaderboard during Masters Copenhagen and Last Chance Qualfiers. Although he played in fewer matches than some of his counterparts, finishing with such a high placement amongst the best players in the world is a feat very few are capable of.