Fnatic Bolster VALORANT Roster with Cloud

On Wednesday, June 17, Fnatic announced the signing of Kirill “Cloud” Nekhozhi, who will step into the European VALORANT roster as a replacement for Sylvain “Veqaj” Pattyn.

Cloud joins Fnatic from GIANTX as a replacement for Clément “CyvOph” Millard, who stood in for Veqaj during VALORANT Champions Tour 2026 EMEA Stage 1 and will become a permanent member of the Black & Orange for Stage 2.

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The 22-year-old served as captain of GIANTX, whom he joined in November 2022, back when the organisation competed as Giants. He remained with the Spanish squad after the merger with Excel Esports and their entry into VCT EMEA.

The changes follow a rough start to the season for Fnatic, who are experiencing their toughest competitive year since their VCT debut in 2021.

The VALORANT Champions 2025 runners-up started the season with a fourth-place finish in the Kickoff event, which has remained their best event placement so far.

In Stage 1, Fnatic showed more signs of life and won Group Omega with a 5-0 record. However, they failed to find success in the playoffs, losing twice against the eventual finalists, Team Vitality and Team Heretics.

Fnatic’s woes continued into the Esports World Cup EMEA Qualifier, where they produced another fifth-sixth place finish and missed out on their third international event of the year.

In a bid to find more success in the final stage of the VCT season and chase an invite to the season-ending VALORANT Champions, Fnatic have already made coaching changes, adding Andrey “Engh” Sholokhov as their new head coach in May.

While Fnatic have been struggling with their results, Cloud has not found much success with GIANTX either. He placed seventh-eighth in the EMEA Kickoff and ninth-10th in EMEA Stage 1.

With both parties looking to bounce back in Stage 2, Cloud now has the tough task of helping Fnatic reach VALORANT Champions.

Fnatic currently have six points in the EMEA Standings, one point below the top four and four points short of catching the leading Vitality and FUT Esports.

Cloud will debut for Fnatic in VCT EMEA Stage 2, scheduled to kick off on July 15.

Mark Prezelj

Esports Betting Analyst

Mark Prezelj is a Slovenian esports betting analyst with over 3,500 articles at EsportBet and the founder of Lines64.com — someone who has been reading odds longer than most readers have been watching esports.

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