Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Valorant Esports is still in its infancy for the most part, but one of the early darlings in the EMEA last year was the French organization Karmine Corp. Most teams that find fan support in the early days of an esport find said success due to finding consistent competitive success, that however, was not the case for Karmine Corp who struggled mightly during the VCT: EMEA League last year as they were tied for last place in the standings with a 2-7 record.
Heading into the 2024 competitive season, the organization decided to part ways with a majority of its starting roster, deciding only to keep Ryad “Shin” Ensaad for the next year. On December 12th, the team announced the rest of its roster, which they hope will help bring the organization to the next level and help compete for not just EMEA titles but also international ones as well. Only time will tell if the team will be able to rise up or if it’ll be another year of struggle for the French organization.
2024’s Line Up
Karmine Corps 2024 Valorant Champions Tour roster is Ryad “Shin” Ensaad, Martin “Magnum” Peňkov, Martin “marteen” Pátek, Marshall “N4RRATE” Massey, and Tomás “tomaszy” Machado with Andrey “Engh” Sholokhov as the Head Coach with Ahmed “ZE1SH” El Sheikh as his assistant. The overhaul is massive as the team is basically replacing every part of their Valorant program from last year, but they hope that this operates as a new foundation that they can build a long-lasting program off of instead of finding themselves in a similar situation at the end of the 2024 season.
The team decided to build this new roster with fresh young talent that is new to the biggest stages in Valorant. Of the four new players, only Magnum has competed at the top level of play, having spent time with Fnatic back in 2021 when he and the team were able to make it to the VALORANT Champions tournament, where he and Fnatic would make it out of Groups just to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
All of the new roster is coming off of time in the developmental scene, but are ready to prove to the world that they deserve to compete in the Champions Tour. Magnum and tomaszy are both coming off stints in VCT: Ascension EMEA, while N4RRATE spent last year in the North American Challengers scene. Of all the players, marteen will be making the biggest jump up after spending his time in the Italian Challengers scene and around other lower-level European competitions.
Engh Back in Control
There are plenty of reasons for fans to be hopeful for this squad, as Engh may be the best coach that the team could’ve picked up in the offseason, having extensive experience coaching in the Valorant scene as he helped take the 2021 Gambit Esports squad to the Grand Finals of the VALORANT Champions 2021 tournament where they’d put on an incredible performance falling to Ascend 2-3 in what was overall an exhilarating match.
He is coming off a year with TSM in the Valorant Challengers: North America scene and will be looking to remind the fans who only watch the top tier of play that he is still a good coach. The team looked decent in their show match against fellow VCT: EMEA competitor Team Heretics, though they also have a history of struggling.