KOI Reveals Its 2023 EMEA Valorant Roster

On Wednesday, January 4, KOI announced the signing of former world champion and Acend in-game leader Patryk “starxo” Kopczyński. With the addition of starxo, KOI finalized its 2023 Valorant roster and officially rounded up the final EMEA VCT lineup just over a month before the VCT Lock In the tournament.

KOI finalized its 2023 Valorant Champions Tour roster with the signing of former Acend player starxo, who rounded up the team’s roster. The 21-year-old teamed up with KOI’s new roster of Jose “koldamenta” Herrero, Bogdan “Sheydos” Naumov, Nikita “trexx” Cherednichenko, and Berkant “Wolfen” Joshkun.

The announcement of straxo’s signing comes just two days after the Polish player left Acend, which transfer listed its entire lineup in September after the European esports organization failed to secure a spot in the partnered league. And while straxo joining KOI is a massive signing, it hardly comes as a surprise.

Straxo was expected to sign with KOI in December but was unable to do so since he was still contracted with Acend. Instead, he had to wait until January for his contract to run out, so the Pole could switch teams even though Acend had no intentions of extending contracts with either of the players who represented the brand in 2022.

The Polish player joining KOI marks the final signing of the VCT EMEA, as all other teams in the region, have already finalized their lineups ahead of the 2023 season. And even though KOI took its time to fill up the roster, there is still over a month left before the 2023 season kicks off.

With the signing of straxo, KOI now field a complete roster filled with some of the top talents from the region. Besides straxo, who is the former Valorant world champion and former in-game leader of Acend, KOI also fields ex-Guild IGL koldamenta, who is expected to take over as the captain of the team.

Joining the two is koldamenta’s former teammate trexx, who has spent the last season with Guild Esports, with who he placed top eight at Masters Copenhagen. One of the biggest additions, sheydos, joined KOI from M3 Champions (formerly Gambit Esports9; with who he placed fourth in VCT 2022: EMEA Stage 2 Challengers and came one series away from winning the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier.

Wolfen joined KOI from Case Esports and is the only player on the new roster with no previous VCT experience. But despite his lack of VCT playtime, Wolfen has proven his worth by achieving a lot of success in some lesser events.

The Bulgarian Valorant pro led Case Esports to a silver medal at VRL 2022 Spain: Rising Stage 1 and won VRL 2022 Spain: Rising Stage 2. He ended the season with a strong showing at VRL 2022 Finals (third place), but stumbled at LVP – Crossfire Cup, where Case could only manage a ninth-12th place finish.

Interestingly, KOI is not the only team that signed former M3 Champions and Guild Esports players. Team Liquid and Fnatic both decided to take a similar approach when building their 2023 rosters.

Still, while KOI build a solid roster, many other EMEA squads look very strong heading into the 2023 season, largely due to the large talent pool that became available during the offseason.

The Riot Games’ decision to move to a partnered league left many of the top Valorant teams without an invitation, forcing them to release their players, which included some of the best players from Europe.

The most notable squads that had to sell their players include Acend, G2 Esports, FunPlus Phoenix, and the VALORANT Champions 2022 finalists, OpTic Gaming. Still, while many prominent teams exited the scene, the 2023 Valorant season promises to offer a competitive field.

The 2023 season is set to kick off with the Valorant Lock-In tournament, scheduled for February 13 – March 4, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Meanwhile, the VCT 2023 EMEA League is scheduled to start on March 26 and run until May 28.