I dont think players have that clause in their contracts. I think in EMEA they have to pay half of their salary until the end of the ongoing season, maybe this is the case for all the regions but as far as I know there isnt a clause like that

It is for the people who didnt know about it. I saw so many SEN and C9 fans get mad at the org for 2028 contracts but in reality its only good for the org

Some orgs are signing 2028 contracts with their players and some fans are questioning these long contracts saying like "Are you sure you are gonna keep this roster for 3 years?"

But you have to understand that Esports contracts work completely different than regular sports contracts. If a player signs long term contract in regular sports its good for a player because they get to secure their jobs for a long time. But in esports, long term contracts are only good for the orgs, there is no job security in esports contracts (except in EU I think, Germany has some 3-6 month protection rules idk about)

Orgs can release players whenever they want regardless of the contract but players cant leave the org as free agent if they have longer contracts, so they to be restricted F/A and have buyouts if they want to leave. Thats why you see the best players sign only 1 year contracts. For example, Aspas only signed 1 year contracts with LEV and MIBR, zekken's contract expired in 2024 alongside Tenz and Sacy but he only signed 1 year contract and now he is officially free agent.

If the rumors are true that Jonahp and leaf might leave G2 then MIBR leaf might become a reality. Just imagine the roster:
Aspas
Zekken
Leaf
Verno
Mazino

I dont think you can draft a better Americas roster than this even if you wanted to. Maybe you might take trent or brawk over Verno and Ethan over Mazino but still this roster is so good. They literally have best players in their roles with Aspas, zekken and leaf and Verno and Mazino are at least top 3 in their role.

Please god dont let MIBR add tex to this roster. Even if leaf doenst join MIBR, where does he go realistically? Maybe to FNC to replace chron? Idk what other good team leaf goes after leaving G2

They need to market Reduxx and N4RRATE as 1-2 power duo as they marketed tenz and zekken back in 2024. Now they lost their star players as in tenz in 2024 and zekken in 2025, they need someone to be the face of the org. I think those two can be that guy, most Sen fans remember how outspoken reduxx was when he subbed in for Red bull even after Tenz retired.

I think upcoming Sen City Invitational is gonna be so perfect for this. They need to start this as soon as possible.

Yeah I admit my only problem so far is I dont know much about Kyu, if he performs like Verno in champs while igling I think this roster is gonna be fine

This roster might seem like an upgrade compared to what we saw from Sen in champs but I think you yourself are underrating last years roster. Zekken at his best completely won so many series on his own, bang looked like the best controller in NA for the good portion of the year and zellsis had huge step ups in so many big games regionally.
Just think about it is reduxx + cortezia better than zekken + bang? I dont know much about Kyu so him over Zellsis might help out a bit, but still zekken spot feels like its not been filled

I think they are running double duelist with reduxx and narrate which I am compeletely fine with. My only issue is both Kyu and johnqt being on the roster, they are gonna have same problem as last year again. Other 3 will have 15-16 kills in the middle of the game while john and kyu will have combined 10 kills just like last years john and zellsis.

Kyu might be better than zellsis but you have to remember if he is gonna igl he is not gonna have that much better output than Zellsis.
I agree cortezia might be better than bang but my point is zekken + bang is much better than reduxx + cortezia. Thats the concern.

Even if this is team is better than last years roster a bit, that wont be enough cuz the competetion is much better this year and they did nothing last year at internationals with similar roster

Arent you guys worried at all on this rosters firepower? So the rumored roster is:

N4RRATE
Reduxx
Cortezia
Kyu
Johnqt

And apparently kyu is gonna igl. Isnt this just straight up worse than last years team? Kyu igl is not gonna be that much better than Zellsis and its same with cortezia compared to bang. They are both slight upgrades at best. But no one is filling the gap zekken left.

Some people might say reduxx is next zekken but I ve seen his tier 2 games, he is way too inconsistent, zekken was always either going even or hard carrying this team for 3 years.

I think they made a mistake by signing both Kyu and johnqt, they needed to pick one of them and sign one more cracked duelist player.

So are you telling that +1 is Kyu? They lack so much on firepower then. Kyu is not that much better than zellsis and neither cortezia nor reduxx is gonna fill the gap zekken left.

So if the report is true that Johnqt is staying then there is no place for kyu in the roster. Narrate already plays the same agents as kyu, johnqt is gonna igl and john will probably play the flex initiators / viper stuff if they are adding cortezia. So the roster is:

N4RRATE (scan)
Johnqt (flex, senti viper)
Cortezia (senti, smokes)
Reduxx (?, probably duelist, might be smokes)
+1

That +1 should be a someone who is a hard fragger for this SEN roster to succeed. I dont want them to sign average t2 players like kyu, nerve or satelite. They need some sort of superstar on that extra spot. Otherwise they are losing a lot of clout

I think MIBR are gonna be on the tourney since they filmed Aspas on Zellsis farewell video. Imagine the tourney with C9, SEN, MIBR and G2. That would be lit

Yearly Sen City tournament is gonna be held next week from 6th to 8th as leaked by C9 after their roster announcement. In that tournament, SEN is gonna participate for sure so we are gonna receive news about the 2026 roster very soon.

Even if SEN yields temporary roster with academy players, we will at least know for sure what happens with zekken and johnqt. I know everyone is pretty much counting zekken is on MIBR and johnqt is on EU but we will at least get the confirmation.
To remind you, zekken and johnqt's contracts have already expired so they will not play for the team temporarily.

Did you forget about Alfa when he joined? Chron also wasnt that vocal either. I dont think language barrier was the reasoning behing Larok not signing with FNC

Wrong site

This might be crazy but this roster might actually cook. Foxy gets the freedom to aim duel just like Less on LOUD 2022/23.
I also doubt other Korean teams pick him up after all the things that happened. T1 have Meteor, DRX have freeing, NS and SLT will probably keep their roster intact after Ascension wins.
Foxy is much better fragger and much more flexible than tex. Please MIBR, even if its not foxy, just sign someone who actually played good last year

Larok isnt downgrade tho. He is the next guy coming up just like Kaajak replaced Derke and outperformed him this year. Larok couldve easily done that. But with Veqaj? I have some doubts. Ok lets see, I trust Boaster to field a good roster

So is Veqaj straight up replacing Chron? seems like a major downgrade

So who is in the roster exactly?
As far as I know it is
eeiu
Koalanoob
Mitch
Alym
nerve

Is this the roster? Its basically 3 players from mid table tier 1 teams and 2 players from 4th best challenger NA team. That is the definiton of mid

Something is off with these FNC rumors.

So as far we know
Boaster
Alfajer
Kaajak

are locked for 2026. There were so reports that crashies re-signed as well. But now this Veqaj rumors seem so strange because he played scan for M8. So is crashies leaving then? There was also a rumor that PCF Larok joined the team to replace Chron. So how is Larok's situation going to work out in the middle of all of this?
Can anyone help out?

I think NRG not making 1st masters wouldnt be a surprise for me. Even tho they won champs, they still played a lot of close games so they could just miss out on internationals.

I dont wanna comment on MIBR just yet because I dont want them to sign tex, so I am just still hoping they find a better sentinel

G2 should be at least top 3. Valyn is too good of an igl to not be top 3

Yeah thats the point, NA roster is gonna make playoffs at most, they are never qualifying to lans with the competetion in Americas, so they shouldve gone for Brazilian talent instead

I wanted them to develop some Brazilian talent since there are still lot of talent in tier as we saw lukxo, cortezia, xenom pop off last year. They need to sign the roster earlier and avoid Visa issues for once to save their lives

Surely this strat isnt gonna work to stay in franchising right?

Riot will renew contracts with teams in 2027 and we are likely gonna see only 8 franchising teams in each league. That means most likely only 2 spots for Brazilian orgs and LOUD and MIBR are gonna take that spot as it stands. Even if there are 10 Franchise spots, I dont think they are getting it.

Only reason orgs like Furia, GE and DFM are gonna get franchising spots is representation since they dont have any results. With Furia going full english speaking roster, I dont think they are saving their spot unless the roster pops off and somehow outperforms teams like G2, NRG and MIBR

Even with that they might still be out already because of so many weird roster decisions, lack of developing new talent, failure of solving VISA issues (other Brazilian orgs didnt have that much issues) and 3 years of being bottom feader team.

Idk anything about LOUD and Furia rosters, thats why I wasnt that confident.

I doubt FNC signs john when there is already low fraggers like crashies and boaster are on the roster. I think FNC will sign some sort of upcoming aimer to replace Chron. NAVI could be a thing.
I really think KC is still more likely tho, especially considering john being close with zeish

With Kyu being pretty much confirmed to join SEN, it automatically means johnqt isnt in the roster anymore. But where is he going actually?
In Americas, there is no any free igl spot for NA teams as far as rumored rosters go, idk much about Brazilian teams but I doubt John goes to Brazilian team. Maybe LOUD johnqt could be a thing, idk

In EMEA, all the expected top teams have igls: FNC, TH, TL, VIT. Idk much about other mid to bottomtable team's rosters but I doubt john will join a team like M8.

Is it really KC? I am struggling to come up with suitable teams

How are people so high up on Kru roster? Is it just because of name value of saadhak and Less? None of the players on KRU looked like they could be a part of championship winning team last year: Dante didnt show up, saadhak peoject was a complete failure, mw got cut from FURIA of all orgs for not using single util, silentzz was an average player on bottomfeader team, Less had an average season.

Acend and Optic didnt get into partnership even tho they won champions and masters events. EG are not safe

There are so many good free agents running around and even with that many good players these teams fail to make a competetive roster they deserve to be kicked out right after 2026 Kickoff. Just to name a few:

• Mindfreak
• Yay
• Demon1
• cned
• eeiu
• johnqt (?)
• mitch
• dgzin
• urangoat
• some TSM, Winthrop and QoR players
  and so many more tier2 and importable free agents are available.

Wth is reduxx doing then? I think SEN should sign Kyu, Narrate, Reduxx and cortezia(smokes) and play satelite(senti) until nightz turns 18. After nightz joins the roster he plays smokes and cortezia moves to senti. Nightz birthday date is really inportant, if its before stage 2 they should plan to play with him next year

I think narrate is better than eeiu. Kyu is also more of initator flex player. As much as I think eeiu is a good player I dont think there is a space for him in this rosfer

NRG won champs with 3 tier 2 players and SEN is basically doing the same thing. 3 players SEN promoting had pretty much the same performanc ein tier 2 as NRG's 3 rookies

New SEN is basically Cubert Academy team from stage 2 but just a bit better. Only supposed changes are NARRATE instead of NISMO and cortezia instead of nightz.

I think cortezia and nightz have very similar firepower but I think nightz is a bit better aimer than cortezia. I would love to know nightz's birthday date because he turns 18 next year and I think he has the potential to be the best player in the world and one to one fill the space tenz has left in smokes position. NARRATE is better player than NISMO so the final roster is bit better than last years Cubert.

Overall, I am happy with the changes, I really believed they needed to change johnqt and zellsis because team was lacking firepower in big games. Only roster move I am not agreeing with is Zekken leaving but I guess it was out of their control if zekken really wanted to play with Aspas. I think SEN fans should be excited for the roster if the roster is:

NARRATE
Kyu
Reduxx
Cortezia
Nightz (satelite)

If you compare the firepower of the roster 1 to 1 to last year, Kyu is similar fragger to john, Cortezia is much better fragger than zellsis, Reduxx is bit worse than zekken for now, Nightz is much better than bang. (Satelite is similar maybe bit better than bang, but not worse)

So overall, team has more firepower and more hunger to win than last years roster.

So according to rumors we are fully rebuilding around just N4RRATE? Honestly I am kinda down keeping him cuz he was our best player alongside zekken.
Zellsis is rumored to C9, zekken to MIBR, bang is already gone and johnqt is also likely to leave.

I think at this point with this many players leaving we could be certain that reduxx is gonna be on the main roster for sure and satelite is like 70-80% confirmed. Cortezia rumor pretty much confirms one of johnqt/zellsis leaving.

So the likely roster for next year would be:

N4RRATE
Reduxx
Cortezia
Satelite
+1(Kyu rumour?)

Such a young roster with no established big names. I am bit excited they are rebuilding with upcoming talent but did the team who made 3 internationals need this many changes?

So Vitality's roster for VCT 2026 is gonna be

Derke
Sayonara
Jamppi
Profek
+1
Pal (HC)

They are pretty much just a bit better BBL but nothing more. Is this gonna be enough tho for securing top 3 this year? Because I think both FNC and TH have better rosters than VIT;
Navi (with Miniboo and Ruxic), BBL PCIFIC, ULF and GX are all gonna be fighting for that 3rd spot

We still dont know much about KC, M8 and TL rosters they might also be good

Idk if this roster matches the expectations Vitality as an org have on themselves. They need to have a year at least like this year's Liquid for the to not disappoint

Yeah I know tex had a good 2024 but this year he looked compeletely out of form to the point I think he was the worst player on last years LEV cuz com had a lot of impact with hsi util.
I just dont agree with picking tex over cortezia after the year we had. Cortezia is much better on every aspect : brazilian representation, firepower, vibes, passion etc. He was in good terms with zekken as well, they were playing ranked games on stream even before the VCT kickoff started

Honestly I am so fine with them picking up Mazino, he might be the bext flex player from South America in last couple of players. He had a great 2024, especially in stage 2 and he had average 2025 with KRU but he was never the problem. SEN fans might remember his insanse game against us so he willbhave pop off games even in this super team.

I am bit disappointed with tex pick tho, he had such a horrible 2025 I didnt even think he was gonna get offers from tier1 teams. Brazilian sentinel players looked and played much better throughout the 2025 compared to tex, lukxo, cortezia and less all look like superteam material. I think they shouldve gone for another star like Chron, leaf or less or just shouldve stuck with cortezia. This team now feels like 2024 LEV all over again but bit better.

You know damn well about greatest of some times huh as a FNC fan

Imagine being Rob Moore and seeing Aspas, zekken, Verno and Less (idk who would MIBR sign for senti role but I imagine some star player since they dropped cortezia for it) walk into office every day and prac meanwhile zellsis is out here twerking around.

Who is the smokes player when zekken is playing duelist then? I think you will need a dedicated smokes player still. I am all for getting Chron and Aspas in the same team but you need all of these stars on comfort roles

Who is playing smokes on double duelist maps? Chron? I would rather have dedicated smokes player than having both Chron and leaf.

Are you getting chronicle senti? Zekken is gonna play smokes on solo duelist maps so you still need a player who can play smokes on double duelist maps. Thats why I chose Keiko import over Chronicle because MIBR have so many good senti players to choose from: Shyy, Cortezia, less and maybe even lukxo

Getting leaf might be possible but I doubt valyn is ever leaving G2. He is basically boaster of G2

Whats the best possible Americas team that could be created?

Imagine you are MIBR org owner and you currently have zekken, aspas and Verno signed to the team, which two other players would make MIBR best team possible in every role? Because you currently have

Possibly the best 2 duelists
Possibly best inititator (top 3 at least)
You just need best smokes and senti player.

Which two players are best smokes + senti combo? I think Keiko import + Less are best possible free agents you can get but idk.

HOLY Americas looks stacked af dor 2026. Just imagien potential trophy winning teams next year:
G2
NRG
SEN with Narrate + reduxx
Kru with Less, Saadhak and dante at least
MIBR with Aspas + zekken
LEV with Sato + spike
C9 with Oxy + vic + (demon1 ?)

Ah and 100T are there as well

Yeah that is the way to go, only worry I have is zekken on flash initiators, thats it. I think zekken is gonna be comfortable on everything else.

I am all down to zekken teaming up with Aspas and Verno, it will be a fun team to follow. But how exactly are the roles situation gonna work out or are they playing double duelist literally every map? Dont get me wrong zekken could play everything if he wants to but he is most comfortable on dive duelists and scan initiator (which he might never get his hands on cuz of Verno). We really need to hope double ini meta never comes back for this team to succeed i guess cuz zekken on flash ini is gonna be a such a waste

I dont think SEN are gonna drop zekken by a choice but zekken himself might wanna leave cuz his contract expires at the end of this year. Thats why I am saying they might need a replacement instead of zekken. For the matter of fact I am also a big zekken fan and might change the flair if zekken chooses likeable org