GotoOne returns to the LEC after spending one year in the LFL with Gentle Mates
Adrien "GotoOne" Picard is set to join Natus Vincere in the LEC as an assistant coach alongside Head Coach Vasilis "TheRock" Voltis, sources told Sheep Esports on Monday. The French coach returns to the LEC after spending a year in the LFL with Gentle Mates as Head Coach, where he achieved two podium finishes in the league, a quarterfinal at the EMEA Masters Spring, and a round of sixteen at the Summer edition.
The Ukrainian organization has therefore chosen to secure its coaching staff before finalizing all of its roster. However, as previously reported by Sheep Esports, one player is already locked in: Turkish jungler Enes "Rhilech" Uçan, and this even before the 2025 Summer Split, which was played by Jungler Francisco "Thayger" Mazo Sánchez instead.
A long process
During the offseason, led by TheRock, NAVI has interviewed a particularly high number of coaches, taking time to decide on their Assistant Coach. In the final process, several known names such as Ali "Craft1x" Aklan, Nicolas "Nicolas Perez" Perez, and Erik "Treatz" Wessén were among a dozen candidates. In the end, despite considering various strong profiles, the Ukrainian organization decided that GotoOne was the best fit for their needs.
While a third coach might soon be reported for NAVI, their coaching staff is now finalized, and the organization is now actively fighting
NAVI in charge
This will therefore be the first iteration of NAVI that the organization can build on its own roster from scratch, without a leftover contract. After acquiring Rogue’s slot, they also had to take over its contracts, including both players and staff. With only a few changes, they played the Summer Split with almost the same roster and coaching staff, led by Simon "fredy122" Payne and Kim "Trick" Gang-yun.
Today, they are already well into their offseason, with Kim "Malrang" Geun-seong set to not be part of NAVI’s team next year, and the starting spot of midlaner Emil "Larssen" Larsson in doubt despite his contract running until the end of 2027.
Return to the LEC after two years
GotoOne has a coaching career that began in 2019 in the French open tour circuits. After winning the tournament, he joined Immortals in the LCS in 2020 as an assistant coach to Thomas "Zaboutine" Si-Hassen. He returned to France the following year as head coach of the now-defunct GameWard and then BDS Academy, reaching the LFL finals twice as well as an EMEA Masters final, which they lost to Team Heretics.
In 2023, he was promoted to the BDS LEC team and immediately delivered an impressive performance: LEC Spring final lost to MAD Lions, followed by a fourth-place finish at the LEC 2023 Season Finals, which secured qualification for the 2023 Worlds Qualifying Series, where they won 3-0 against the Golden Guardians. The team then had an outstanding Play-In run, defeating Detonation FocusMe, CTBC Flying Oyster, and PSG Talon in a remarkable reverse sweep.
In the Swiss Stage, they lost all three BOs against JD Gaming, MAD, and Dplus KIA, but the run through the year generated hype around the Swiss organization. GotoOne then took a one-year break before returning in 2025 to the LFL with M8. While the team never truly reached the top, they established themselves as a top-tier LFL squad, finishing on the podium in both the Spring and Summer Splits. More recently, Sheep Esports reported that Gentle Mates is leaving the League of Legends scene after two years in the LFL.
Natus Vincere's reported 2026 Winter split roster:
- Top: TBD
- Jungle: Enes "Rhilech" Uçan
- Mid: TBD
- ADC: Lee "Hans SamD" Jae-hoon
- Support: TBD
- Head Coach: Vasilis "TheRock" Voltis
- Assistant Coach: Adrien "GotoOne" Picard
For more roster changes, check out our Transfers Hub and Offseason Live Tracker.
Header Photo Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
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