Team Vitality parts ways with Kicks after two-year tenure

Team Vitality has officially parted ways with Kimmie "Kicks" Laasner after two years with the team following the French organization’s decline throughout the VCT 2025 season.

Team Vitality has been one of the busiest teams of the offseason, with hopes of rectifying the shortcomings seen at the end of the VCT 2025 season. Immediately after VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions, Team Vitality made a shocking announcement that they had successfully acquired Timofey "Chronicle" Khromov to bolster their lineup for the coming year. Now, the team has officially revealed that they have parted ways with Kicks as Team Vitality looks towards a complete rebuild centered around superstar duelist Nikita "Derke" Sirmitev.

Kicks was the final member of Team Vitality’s VCT 2024 lineup, where he was an integral part of the team’s miracle run to qualify for VCT 2024 - Champions 2024.

The VCT 2025 season was one marked by early highs and disappointing lows, as the EMEA superteam progressively collapsed throughout the 2025 season.

Team Vitality 2025 superteam comes to an end

Team Vitality was the number one EMEA team at the start of the VCT 2025 season. They came in with high expectations going into VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Kickoff and were able to match those expectations by winning the first domestic split of the season. That momentum carried over into VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Masters Bangkok 2025, where the team secured a fourth-place finish at the event.

However, the team’s performance throughout VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Stage 1 and VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Stage 2 highlighted the team’s struggle to sustain growth post-Bangkok. The team was unable to even reach the top four of either domestic stage, resulting in their shocking early end to the 2025 season. It will be interesting to see how Team Vitality builds out the rest of their lineup going into the VCT 2026 season following the departure of Kicks. It has been rumoured that former world champion Felipe "Less" Basso will be leaving Team Vitality to join KRÜ Esports in the 2026 season, leaving the lineup down to just Derke and Chronicle for the moment.

Be sure to follow THESPIKE.GG for more VALORANT offseason content like this as we head into the VCT 2026 season.

Cover Image: Yicun Liu of Riot Games