Gentle Mates match last season’s total wins in VCT EMEA

Could Gentle Mates be the dark horse of VCT EMEA this season? On Thursday, January 22, the French team secured their second victory of the year by defeating GIANTX 2–0. With this win, Gentle Mates have already matched their total number of victories from last season. In its VCT history, M8 had also never previously won two games in a row.

After two nightmarish years in VCT, the team may finally have found their rhythm in Europe’s premier league. This marks a significant turnaround for the 2023 Ascension champions, who were not even expected to remain in the league this season.

Across their first two years in VCT, Gentle Mates never managed to escape the bottom of the standings. The organization recorded five BO3 wins in its inaugural year without qualifying for playoffs, followed by just two BO3 victories last season, again with no postseason appearances. The struggles were substantial.

In fact, the team was set to be relegated to VCL following last season and was likely to stop its VALORANT operations altogether. However, after Riot Games’ decision to remove KOI from the league, M8 inherited the vacant partner slot. From there, the organization opted to overhaul four players and rebuild around Patrik "Minny" Hušek, who had delivered encouraging performances the previous year.

For their debut at this year’s VCT Kickoff, Gentle Mates started convincingly, sweeping FUT Esports without dropping a map. Facing a tougher opponent in the next round, a reality check seemed likely, but the opposite occurred. Locked in a close battle with GIANTX on the first map, M8 prevailed 13–10 after winning the final three rounds.

The Spanish team, who had previously competed at Champions and won Project Blender, raised the tempo in the second map by building a 10–2 lead. Yet, where Gentle Mates had once become known — almost in spite of themselves — for throwing games and squandering advantages, the team instead showed resilience, stringing together eleven consecutive rounds to secure another map sweep.

Now in the Upper Bracket Semifinals, they will face Natus Vincere, who sent Karmine Corp and Team Heretics to the middle bracket. Two more consecutive victories could see the French team qualify for the first international event in its history for the Masters Santiago.