Two EMEA rosters changed hands in one evening, and both stories end in the same place: the Open Qualifiers for VCT EMEA Kickoff 2027.
NAVI have said goodbye to their entire 2026 Valorant roster, and within hours Aurora Gaming announced a lineup built around three of the region’s biggest free agents: Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev, Ričardas “Boo” Lukaševičius and Nikita “trexx” Cherednichenko.
NAVI thanked “all the players and staff who have been part of NAVI VALORANT throughout 2026” on 28 October. Gone are 
Emirhan “hiro” Kat, 
Uğur “Ruxic” Güç, 
Caide “chloric” Heaton, 
Abdullah “ExiT” Al-Twaijri, 
Clément “CyvOph” Millard and head coach 
Kyrylo “ANGE1” Karasov. chloric, ExiT and CyvOph had already been listed as inactive since September.
A partner spot lost, a junior team promoted
The release follows NAVI’s announcement on 19 October that they had not been selected as a VCT partner for 2027. Instead of chasing a place with a rebuilt senior team, the organisation is putting its name on its academy side. NAVI Junior, with Vitalii “Javelin” Fedak, Herman “Kolosha” Skrypka, Waniss “Darxcioo” Mehl, Nikita “avey” Ivanovs, Wiktor “sizo” Bujak and coach Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, will represent NAVI in the EMEA Kickoff Europe Qualifier.
The 2026 season gave NAVI few reasons to hold on to the old core. hiro, Ruxic and ANGE1 were kept from 2025, with ANGE1 moving from in-game leader to head coach. NAVI finished in the top eight at Kickoff, then replaced Andrey “Shao” Kiprsky and Volkan “sociablEE” Yonal with chloric as IGL and ExiT as duelist. Visa problems delayed ExiT, so Berkcan “ComeBack” Şentürk stood in for Stage 1, where NAVI went 2-3 in the group stage and missed the playoffs. Dawid “Filu” Czarnecki made way for CyvOph before Stage 2, which ended the same way: 2-3 in the group, then out in the play-ins against Team Heretics.
NAVI (released)
- hiro
- Ruxic
- chloric
- ExiT
- CyvOph
- ANGE1Coach
Aurora (2027)
Derke
Boo
trexx- chiwa
- B1SK
From reports to a roster in one evening
Aurora’s move started as a series of leaks. On 28 October, Sheep Esports reported that the Serbian organisation would build its first Valorant team around Derke, followed by reports on Boo and trexx. Later that night Aurora confirmed all three, plus Egor “chiwa” Stepanyuk and Vitaliy “B1SK” Emelyanov. No coach has been named.
Aurora are best known for Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 and have never competed in a Riot Games title. Without a partner slot, they go through the same Open Qualifiers as NAVI Junior. Kickoff has 12 teams: the eight partners and four qualifiers, two from Europe, one from Türkiye and one from MENA. The European qualifiers are played from 5 to 8 November and from 12 to 15 November, and Riot has already had to review the format after criticism.
Derke is not the only one with big-stage experience. Boo captained Team Heretics through the whole partnership era, from 2023 until his release at the end of 2026, reaching the Champions 2024 final and the Masters Shanghai final the same year, and winning the Esports World Cup in 2025. trexx returned to Team Liquid for Stage 2 of 2026, reached the regional final and played at Champions, before saying on X that he would not stay. He and Derke were teammates at Vitality in 2025.
The other two come from Challengers. chiwa won three French Challengers titles with Joblife between 2025 and 2026 and finished third at Challengers EMEA Stage 3, while B1SK won Challengers Spain Stage 1 with UCAM in 2026.
Derke leaves a Champions final for a qualifier
Derke is the biggest name to change teams this off-season, and he topped our look at the Valorant transfer market earlier this month. The Finnish duelist started his VCT career with CrowCrowd in 2021 before joining Fnatic, where he won VCT LOCK//IN São Paulo and Masters Tokyo in 2023 and two VCT EMEA titles in 2024.
At Vitality he won VCT EMEA Kickoff 2025, finished fourth at Masters Bangkok and Masters London and reached the Champions 2026 final, which Vitality lost 3-1 to LOUD. His contract ran out at the end of the season, and Vitality announced his departure on 24 October. Aurora will be his fourth team.
That he picked a team without a partner slot says a lot about the 2027 market. With only eight places in EMEA’s partner league, a Champions finalist now has to qualify like everyone else.
Turkish market moves too
The reshuffle is not limited to Aurora. Efe “s0pp” Tur, the 18-year-old Turkish duelist who played for FUT Esports in 2026, is set to join Eternal Fire, according to Sheep Esports. FUT finished third in both EMEA Stage 1 and Stage 2, placed 5th-6th at Masters London and went to Champions Shanghai. Eternal Fire were also left out of the 2027-2028 partner list, so the move would put s0pp on the road to the Türkiye qualifier. Neither team has confirmed it.
With NAVI’s senior players and staff now free, hiro and Ruxic among them, the pool of experienced EMEA players looking for a team is bigger still. The question for the organisations outside the partner league is how many of them can fit inside a qualifier with only four Kickoff places.
