The Turkish in-game leader played his last match for FOKIN on Wednesday, six years after he lifted Riot’s first official Valorant trophy with Team Heretics.
Melih “pAura” Karaduran has ended his career as a Valorant player. The 29-year-old wrote on X on that it had been the last day of his Valorant career, hours after his team FOKIN had lost 0-2 to Boston Nine in the round of 32 of the first Türkiye qualifier for VCT 2027 EMEA Kickoff.
The message was in Turkish. In English it reads:
Greetings everyone. Today was the last day of my Valorant career. We had one last dance together with the boys. I will share a video about the future soon. Thanks to everyone, those who love me and those who don’t.
He did not use the word retire himself, and the promised video is the only word so far on his plans.
From First Strike to Masters Berlin
pAura’s first tournaments came in the summer of 2020 with looking4org, and Team Heretics signed him that October. Two months later the Spanish organisation won First Strike Europe, Riot’s first official Valorant tournament, with a 3-1 win over SUMN FC in the final on 6 December 2020. Heretics also finished second at the first VCT Europe Masters in 2021.
In May 2021 he moved home to Papara SuperMassive (now SuperMassive Blaze), and the Turkish side took him to his one Masters: Berlin in September 2021, where they went out in the group stage.
| Year | Team | Best result |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Team Heretics | First Strike Europe winners |
| 2021 | Team Heretics | VCT Europe Stage 1 Masters, 2nd |
| 2021 | Papara SuperMassive | Masters Berlin, group stage |
| 2022 | BBL Esports | EMEA Challengers, group stage |
| 2023 | S2G Esports | Challengers Türkiye Split 1 winners |
| 2024 | BBL Esports | VCT EMEA, 7th in Stage 2 |
| 2025 | S2G Esports | Challengers Türkiye, playoffs |
| 2026 | Misa Esports | Challengers Türkiye Kickoff winners |
| 2026 | FOKIN | VCT 2027 Kickoff qualifier, round of 32 |
A season in VCT EMEA with BBL
His only season in the partnered VCT EMEA league came with BBL Esports in 2024. The team finished 10th-11th at Kickoff, 7th-8th in Stage 1 and 7th in Stage 2, and missed the playoffs both times. He left BBL’s active roster in September 2024 and went back to S2G Esports for a year in Challengers Türkiye.
He joined Misa Esports at the end of 2025 and won the Türkiye Birlik Kickoff with them, before a fourth place in Challengers EMEA Stage 1 and a group-stage exit in the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier. FOKIN picked him up in September 2026 for the Monsters Reloaded qualifier and the VCT 2027 Kickoff qualifier, where Wednesday’s defeat ended both the run and the career.
He spent that last season mostly on Omen and Cypher. In the defeat to Boston Nine he went 10-17 on Omen on Lotus and 12-16 on Cypher on Abyss.
