With VCT Returning in less than 48 hours, and so many changes this year including roster moves, format changes and game updates to cover. This article is your blueprint for VCT Kick-Off.
Roster Moves
Starting off with the juicy part of the off-season. The roster moves. There have been an outstanding amount of roster moves this off-season with only 1 team making 0 changes and that being EMEA’s GIANTX’s roster.
The Rosters
NRG
NRG made only 1 change, that came as a surprise to some but not to others with the Champs curse being a real thing, where the team that wins Champions, will never stick together and will always split at some point. s0m decided to take a step back from professional play and lean into content creation. This led Bonkar and NRG to pick up the best performing smokes player of 2025, Keiko, who was coming off of the back of MVP performances for Team Liquid in EMEA.
G2
This change came as a big shock since it happened so late in the off-season. JonahP was dropped out of the 5 year core of himself, valyn and trent from ‘The Guard’. He was replaced by the super-sub BABYBAY, who stepped in during the season whilst leaf dealt with health issues. This change meant that JonahP was dropped with less than 1 month before the season began and teams were already solidified not allowing an opportunity for him to find a team in time for Kick-Off. This change also created somewhat role conflicts and from off-season performances, it seems like BABYBAY will g to the sentinel role and leaf will go to initiator/flex for the team like JonahP played.
Sentinels
Sentinels were one of the teams that had a huge overhaul of players where they changed 3 of their starting roster from last season. They promoted Reduxx and Kyu from their academy roster, Cubert Academy, and then brought in the superstar Rookie cortezia from the MIBR roster of 2025. For these players to come in, they dropped Zellsis, bang and most surprisingly, zekken. The CEO of Sentinels, Rob Moore, went on PlatChat to discuss the departure of zekken and he said ‘they made him an offer he just couldn’t refuse’. They also kept a hold of N4RRATE and johnqt who will now switch roles with N4RRATE going to full-time duelist and johnqt moving away from IGL and going to secondary caller, much like Zellsis was for the last few years.
MIBR
After an incredible year of ups and downs with their star signing aspas, MIBR look to further improve their success this coming season with an incredible lineup filled with superstars. They dropped their Brazilian core from last season consisting of xenom, cortezia and artzin. They have been replaced by LEV tex, KRU Mazino and SEN zekken. These three players join alongside aspas and Verno from the 2025 roster. On paper, this is possibly the best roster in Americas, however, health issues for aspas have meant that they weren’t able to start practice until the middle of December, only allowing around a month of practice time for this superteam.
LOUD
A once huge Brazilian force in VCT, the former world Champions have made a small change to their 2025 roster where they dropped RobbieBK for Darker whilst they keep hold of pANcada, Virtyy, lukxo and cauanzin to round out their roster, keeping the portugese speaking roster to compete for ‘previous glory’.
Cloud9
After yet another year of disappointment, Cloud9 have left fans wanting a single international appearance for the 3rd year of franchising. They had multiple roster changes in 2025, and they decided to drop 2 of their players from their roster, mitch and neT. They picked up two Tier 1 players from 2025, Zellsis and penny to round out their roster. It seems that, from off-season games, Zellsis will pick up the IGL role on the sentinel role, with penny going onto the flex role, hoping that the double duelist meta carries on into the 2026 season.
KRU Esports
The LATAM organisation had a rough end to 2025, with their first year not making VCT Champions since the start of franchising. The organisation saw this, and made a huge overhaul to their long standing players and only keeping a hold of Dantesdeu5 from their 2025 roster. They have picked up Less from Vitality, saadhak from Karmine Corp, silentzz from 2Game Esports and mwzera from Los Grandes. However, as of the 14th of January, there are reports that their entire roster is having VISA issues and they won’t make it in time for their series against FURIA on the 16th, with rumours saying that they will have to field a roster of Americas players, similar to what FURIA did last season with the Turtle troops roster in their opening game.
Evil Geniuses
The previous world champions, EG, have also undergone a huge re-vamp of their roster, dropping yay, nature, icy and derrek from their 2025 roster and picking up M80 bao, LEV c0m, Team Solid dgzin and LEV okeanos to round out their roster. Fans are speculating that outside issues could harm this roster with the fact that before signing for Evil Geniuses, dgzin couldn’t actually speak English. With this EG roster being an English speaking roster, it could see issues arising with him being the entry duelist.
LEVIATAN
LEVIATAN have undergone a big change going from an international roster to a LATAM side once again with keeping only kiNgg and sato from their 2025 roster. They dropped Demon1, Rossy, c0m, tex and okeanos from the start of last year. They picked up blowz and neon from their academy roster, spike from 2Game epsorts and they were forced to pick up PxS to fill in for neon until January 28th, when he turns 18 and is eligible for Tier 1 competition.
100Thieves
The NA organisation that have always had a huge fanbase, but never the results to match, have made a few big changes for their roster coming into 2026, somewhat drawing inspiration from NRG who picked up Tier 2 talents to improve their roster. 100T dropped Boostio, Kess, Zander and eeiu. They replaced them with vora and Timotino from TSM and they brought back bang from SEN who joined them from 100T last season. From off-season tournaments, it seems like the roles have changed drastically from 2025, with Asuna moving away from duelist and onto flex, Cryo moving to a perma-chamber on most maps and Timotino picking up the full time duelist, which allowed him to make Ascension play-offs with TSM last year.
FURIA
FURIA ended 2025 with only 1 win all season, and that win came when they fielded their emergency sub Turtle troop roster. When they played their starting roster, they had no wins across VCT last year. They must have saw that and looked at how easy it was to field an NA roster, they have picked up a majority NA roster for their 2026 season. They dropped their entire 2025 starting roster and picked up NAVI koalanoob, 100T eeiu, QoR alym, MIBR artzin and QoR nerve. They actually kept basic from their 2025 roster as a sub for this years side.
ENVY
The newly ascended side, ENVY, were forced into unfortunate roster moves . Due to age restrictions, any players under 18 cannot play in the VCT even if their ascension winning roster is full of them, they have to field a different roster for VCT. They were forced to drop ion2x and canezerra, who were widely recognised as their best players. However, they replaced 2 rookies with 2 veterans of the VCT with KRU Keznitdeus and LEV rossy.
Format Changes
This years kick-off follows a different format from last year, where only 2 teams made it to Masters Bangkok. This year 3 teams from each region can qualify to Masters Santiago.
This means that the tournament will follow a triple knockout format with the top 4 performing sides have been given a bypass to the Upper Round 2. In Americas, these teams that earned a free pass are World Champions NRG, G2 Esports, Sentinels and MIBR.
Another update to the format is that due to the first games just being randomly selected matchup’s, they will be starting to battle it out in a 1v1 skirmish to see who gets the A-side and can choose the first map ban for the series.
The tournament kicks off on the 15th January with ENVY facing off against Evil Geniuses for the first game of VCT globally.
Valorant Digest 
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