VALORANT: WACKIE and Jady part ways with Valiant

With the French VALORANT Challengers season coming to an end, teams are starting to reshuffle, and Valiant are the first to make a move. On Tuesday, August 19, Rikardo "WACKIE" Birjukov and Yaroslav "Jady" Nikolaev officially announced the end of their tenures with the French organization.

Both players left the organization shortly after Adil "elemeNt" Maufroid, the team's head coach all year, revealed that he was seeking new opportunities before his deal expires in September. Sohan "NeskaaS" Bessassa, who has been part of the roster as a player since January 2023, made the same announcement.

This wave of exits is hardly surprising for Valiant — or for other VCL organizations — since their competitive season effectively ended in early August. For teams that failed to qualify for the EMEA Challengers, the only events left on the calendar are offseason tournaments like Project Blender before the national leagues return at the end of October. This period provides a natural window for restructuring and rethinking VALORANT competitive strategy.

After a strong 2024, Valiant had an underwhelming season. Financial struggles, which the organization openly acknowledged, certainly didn’t help, although Valiant still managed to claim the French Challengers Split 2 title, defeating the Karmine Corp academy squad in the grand final. Earlier in the year, however, they'd finished a disappointing 5th-6th place in Split 1, which prompted changes to the roster, most notably with the arrival of Jady.

With the Russian player on board, Valiant finally captured their first-ever domestic title. The return to the top was short-lived, though, as they fell early in the EMEA Challengers Split 2 group stage, losing to UCAM and to Enterprise Esports — the eventual winners of the tournament. Following that disappointment, Valiant brought in WACKIE for the final stretch of 2025. His run with the roster came to an end against Mandatory, in a thrilling lower bracket final decided 3-2.

Given these results and the missed qualification for both the new EMEA Challengers iteration and Ascension, the French organization is now entering a rebuilding phase. The team benched elemeNt and NeskaaS on the search for new talent, while WACKIE and Jady decided to move on to new opportunities with the expiration of their contracts.