Gentle Mates announced as VCT partner team For 2026

The former VALORANT Ascension team, Gentle Mates, have been selected as a new VALORANT Champions EMEA partner team and will rejoin the league next season.

Riot picked Gentle Mates as a replacement for KOI, whose VCT partnership was terminated at the end of the 2025 season due to a breach of the team’s contractual agreement.

As later revealed by KOI’s co-founder, Ibai “Ibai” Llanos, the reason behind the termination of KOI’s partnership was a lack of content, low skin sales, as well as the team’s poor performance on the VALORANT circuit.

Gentle Mates were picked as a replacement through an application process in which they, along with eight other teams, were considered to fill the vacant spot.

Riot evaluated all squads using the same criteria used to pick the original 10 VCT partners. That included organizational goals for the 2026 season, strategic alignment, the ability to generate fandom, operational readiness, and competitive plans.

Based on those criteria, Gentle Mates scored the highest; however, it was not revealed who the other candidates were.

Gentle Mates securing a partnership agreement will not significantly alter the team’s presence in the VCT EMEA.

The French esports organization have been a part of the European VALORANT league since winning EMEA Ascension in 2023.

In the past two years, Gentle Mates have made their presence known, but have yet to achieve any notable results, never placing higher than seventh-eighth nor reaching the playoffs across the six VCT EMEA events.

Their most recent performance in VCT 2025 EMEA Stage 2 saw Gentle Mates finish last with a 0-5 series and 4-10 map record, tying with Apeks as the worst-performing team of the stage.

Since the humiliating run in Stage 2, Gentle Mates have removed Yusuf Emre “Proxh” Tunc and Sylvain “Veqaj” Pattyn, and assistant coach Juan “McJuankar” Mesa.

With the whole offseason to rebuild, Gentle Mates have plenty of time to form a competitive roster for their first season as a partnered team.

The VCT 2026 season is set to begin in January with a new VCT 2026 Kickoff tournament.