Gentle Mates Part Ways With Entire VALORANT Roster And Coaches
French organisation Gentle Mates have parted ways with their entire VALORANT roster and coaching staff, wiping the slate clean before their first season as a VCT partner team in 2027.
For bettors following VALORANT markets, a partner side with no players is a reminder to check the line-ups before backing anyone, and our betting sites page lists operators covering esports.
The team bid farewell to marteen, starxo, Minny, Proxh, H1ber and VLR.gg reported that head coach Jiri "KUNDIKUNDI" Honkala and assistant Erim "Mavera" Sasal are leaving too.
The wording of the farewell was soft. It thanked the players and wished them well rather than using terms such as "released" or "terminated," according to coverage by the Japanese outlet VALOPEDIA, so contract details remain unclear.
VLR.gg still listed three of the players as active at the time of writing.
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Season Faded After Fast Start
Gentle Mates finished last in EMEA in 2025, then rebuilt around Minny, adding starxo as in-game leader alongside marteen, Taranvir "bipo" Singh and Conner "GLYPH" Garcia.
That group finished second at the EMEA Kickoff, losing 2-3 to BBL Esports in the upper final, and marteen set a best-of-five kill record along the way.
The run earned the club its first international event at Masters Santiago, where it went 2-2 and exited in the top eight.
Results then dried up. A 2-3 group stage in Stage 1 cost head coach Pavle "pakko" Kostic his job, with KUNDIKUNDI promoted from assistant. GLYPH left after a 0-2 playoff exit, and Proxh, who played for the club in 2025, returned.
The side reached the Esports World Cup, where NRG knocked it out in the quarter-finals, but another 2-3 group stage in Stage 2 followed. H1ber replaced bipo before the play-ins, and Eintracht Frankfurt ended the season there.
The team finished 9th of the 12 EMEA sides with seven Championship Points and missed Champions.
Marteen Points To Internal Problems
About an hour after the club's posts, marteen wrote on his own X account that the internal problems at the team had grown too large to ignore, and that the memories were ending there, as reported by VALOPEDIA.
Neither he nor the club has said what those problems were. Starxo had announced on September 2 that he had permission to look for a new team while still under contract, and KUNDIKUNDI announced a search for a new team on October 20.
What Comes Next?
Riot Games named Gentle Mates among its 32 partner teams for 2027 and 2028 on October 22, so the organisation will have a direct place in the 2027 Kickoff, whatever line-up it builds.
The 2027 rules reportedly require at least three of five fielded players to be residents of the team's home region, though Riot staff have said existing partner rosters get a transition exception that covers 2026 players but not new additions. The transfer window is reported to open on November 2.
Gentle Mates are not alone. VALOPEDIA noted that MIBR moved all five players to inactive on October 24, while Crazy Raccoon and GAM Esports also had no announced players as of October 26.
Rumours of incoming signings are circulating, but none have been confirmed by the organisation, so we are not treating them as fact.
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