At the end of a long and drawn out VALORANT offseason prior to the start of the VCT partnership era, all 30 partnered teams across the Americas, EMEA, and Pacific leagues now field a complete starting roster.
KOI, the Spanish organization founded by streaming superstar Ibai Llanos and famous retired footballer Gerard Piqué, has finally completed their roster today, officially signing former Acend player and 2021 world champion Patryk “starxo” Kopczyński.
The signing hasn’t really caught anyone tuned into professional VALORANT off guard; starxo has long been reported as expected to sign with KOI, but was unable to do so at the same time as the rest of the team’s starting roster given the status of his Acend contract at the time. With that contract run out, he has now officially joined on with the KOI boys.
Outside of starxo, KOI officially signed the entirety of their roster back in mid-December: former Guild in-game leader Jose “koldamenta” Herrero, flex player Nikita “trexx” Cherednichenko, former Gambit/M3C member Bogdan “Sheydos” Naumov, and Berkant “Wolfen” Joshkun. Coaching the team is former Guild coach André “BARBARR” Möller.
The KOI roster isn’t the only team to stack their squad with former Guild and M3C talent. Both Fnatic and Team Liquid bolstered their rosters with players from those teams during this past offseason, and organizations like NAVI, Karmine Corp, and Heretics put together potentially great rosters as well.
But when both KOI and the EMEA teams begin VCT play this year, it won’t solely be against each other. To kick off the 2023 VCT season, all 30 teams will travel to the LOCK//IN event in São Paulo and face off against each other in a three-week long tournament, in lieu of the traditional first of two splits that make up a VCT season.
