After coming so close last year with 2 second place finishes in Masters Shanghai and also Champions Seoul, they are back for vengeance and took it to Gentle Mates with a confident victory.

They brought to the stage the same formula that got them so much success last year with the same roster and coaching staff, which in the VALORANT world, has become a rarity.

MiniBoo after coming under some scrutiny for his KDA scoreline, had something to prove coming into this season as last year, taking a break during Masters Shanghai, his teammate Wo0t, took the duelist role and shined across VCT surprising so many fans.

He left the series topfrag with a 42/32/7 KDA showing why he is the duelist player for this roster whilst the rest of the roster kept their roles that were so competitive last year.

Despite being the main favourites coming into this matchup, Gentle Mates managed to take Abyss 13-4 in a dominant display which had some fans questioning if this Team Heretics is still the same.

They then switched the narrative on Fracture, taking one up on Gentle Mates and winning 13-3 showing that they weren’t going down without a fight.

Eventually they took Pearl 13-8 in a shaky first map but eventually convincing win over the French organisation.

Riens at 19 yo https://t.co/WSzKKcU4I3 pic.twitter.com/fFd37VgIan

— Heretics Valorant (@HereticsVal) January 23, 2025

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

After this win Team heretics now move on up to the Upper bracket semi finals of VCT EMEA Kick-Off where they will face off against the new Dark horse of EMEA, BBL Esports after their win over FNATIC last week.

On the other side, Gentle Mates now drop down into lower bracket and will face off against Movistar KOI where they are undoubtedly favourites to move on throughout the lower bracket and try and make a deep run to make it to Masters Bangkok.