Gentle Mates have cleared the decks. The French organisation has parted ways with all five players on its active VALORANT roster, along with both of its coaches, ahead of its first season as a VCT partner team in 2027. The club confirmed the exits in a short farewell post on X, thanking marteen, starxo, Minny, Proxh and H1ber.
Head coach Jiri “KUNDIKUNDI” Honkala and assistant coach Erim “Mavera” Sasal are also gone, which means the Mates will start their 2027 project with a completely blank sheet. The move is one of the biggest yet in an off-season that has already seen Team Vitality part ways with Derke.
Merci pour tout et bonne continuation 🩷
@minnyfn
@starxo5
@imthemarteen
@H1berr
@proxhhGentle Mates (@gentlemates) October 25, 2026
A season that started with a bang
It is a sharp turn for a side that looked like one of the surprise packages of the year early in the season. After finishing last in EMEA in 2025, Gentle Mates rebuilt almost from scratch. Patrik “Minny” Hušek was the only player kept, with Patryk “starxo” Kopczynski brought in to lead the team in game, joined by Martin “marteen” Pátek, Taranvir “bipo” Singh and Conner “GLYPH” Garcia.
That group finished second at EMEA Kickoff, a run in which marteen set a new kill record for a best-of-five series. It also earned the Mates a ticket to Masters Santiago, the first international event in the club’s history. They went 2-2 in Chile and bowed out in the top eight.
Changes that never stuck
The rest of 2026 was far less kind. According to VLR.gg, a 2-3 group stage record in Stage 1 cost head coach Pavle “pakko” Kostic his job, with KUNDIKUNDI stepping up from assistant. GLYPH left after a 0-2 exit in the Stage 1 playoffs, and Yusuf “Proxh” Emre Tunc, who had played for the club in 2025, returned in his place.
Stage 2 brought another 2-3 group record. Joona “H1ber” Parviainen then replaced bipo before the play-ins, where Eintracht Frankfurt ended the Mates’ season. Earlier this month, VLR.gg reported that KUNDIKUNDI was looking for a new team, that starxo and bipo had been allowed to explore their options and that H1ber had been released. Along the way, the team also reached the Esports World Cup, where eventual runners-up NRG knocked them out in the quarter-finals.
What comes next for Gentle Mates
Gentle Mates are one of the organisations Riot Games picked as partner teams for the next era of the VALORANT Champions Tour, so their place in EMEA is secure. The question now is who they will build around. With no players or coaches left from the 2026 line-up, every role on the team is open.
For the five departing players, the timing is good. The transfer window is busy and plenty of partner teams are reshaping their rosters, as our round-up of early VALORANT off-season moves shows. marteen in particular should draw interest after his record-setting Kickoff, while Minny leaves after two seasons with the club.
