After a trophyless 2025 season in which their best placing was 5th-6th at both the Esports World Cup and Valorant Masters Toronto, Sentinels have unveiled their roster for VCT 2026 – and Amine “johnqt” Ouarid opened up a bit on what has changed and why.

Only johnqt and Marhsall “N4RRATE” Massey remain from their 2025 team, with three new players coming from three different nations within the Americas region replacing them.

johnqt Speaks on Relinquishing IGL Role

The new lineup sees Gabriel “cortezia” Cortez, Mirel “Kyu” Hrustemovic, and Yassin “reduxx” Aboulalazm all join the team. They replace Sean “bang” Bezerra, Zachary “zekken” Patrone, and Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, the latter of which has already secured a move back to Cloud9.

cortezia arrives from MIBR, whilst Kyu and reduxx join from VALORANT Challengers team, Cubert Academy. Kyu will be the new IGL of the team, taking over the role from johnqt.

johnqt has already spoken about the decision to give up IGLing, after revealing that Kyu would be the new leader on his Twitch stream: 

“I was interested, and Sentinels was interested, in me having less responsibility so I can just be a shooter. I have really good mechanics, so they want to alleviate some of that stuff from me. I told them I’m down if there’s an IGL that’s really good and we believe in, and that’s Kyu.”

johnqt explains his resigning and why he is not IGL on the current roster 🫣 pic.twitter.com/SkkGDQ0x3e

— tecia ☆ (@kuromitecia) November 2, 2025

The Moroccan will still have calling responsibilities though, aiding Canadian Kyu in the mid-round from his lurking positions. 

Sentinels’ Changes Come After Huge Failure

Although changes were likely at Sentinels anyway due to the contracts expiring, the total rebuild was likely enforced by the disappointing result the team faced at Valorant Champions 2025.

The team had struggled at international events all year, having failed to advance past the group stage at both Masters Toronto and Masters Bangkok. Things then got even worse at Champions, with the team being eliminated in last place following losses to GIANTX and XLG Esports.

Although two of their new players lack experience at the highest level, Sentinels will be hoping for a much better year in 2026. They retained two experienced players in Johnqt and N4RRATE, whilst Cortezia will also provide even more knowledge of the VCT system and the level required to compete in it as they look to bring Kyu and Reduxx up to speed.