“I believe in everyone on the team”: Gentle Mates’ marteen at VCT EMEA Kickoff 2026

After two years under the Karmine Corp (KC) banner, VALORANT athlete Martin ‘marteen’ Pátek joined Gentle Mates for the 2026 VCT season.

Despite Gentle Mates being relegated to Challengers following a disappointing 2025 season, the removal of KOI from VCT EMEA has given the organisation a second chance in VALORANT’s tier-one league.

For 2026, marteen joins a heavily re-worked Gentle Mates roster that includes a reunion with his former tier-two duo, Taranvir ‘bipo’ Singh.

“I really wanted to play with bipo. I believed in bipo. After two years, we finally reunite,” shared marteen in an interview with Esports Insider. “I was very happy, and I believe in everyone on the team. I think everyone is insane.”

Marteen began his esports journey as a Fortnite player before switching to VALORANT in early 2021. 

The player and bipo previously met on the Azerbaijani esports organisation GMT Esports, where they competed in Italy’s Challengers circuit between 2022 and 2023. While bipo stayed in tier-two, playing for NOVO Esports and MOUZ, marteen was picked up by French powerhouse Karmine Corp for his VCT debut in 2024.

Marteen’s debut year with Karmine Corp arguably started in the best way possible, winning 2024’s EMEA Kickoff tournament and qualifying for Masters Madrid. However, following the first global event of the season, Karmine Corp slowed down, failing to reach another international event.

This trend persisted throughout 2025, with the Frecnh team steadily remaining at the bottom half of VCT EMEA’s leaderboard. In November 2025, Karmine Corp parted ways with marteen and IGL Matias ‘Saadhak’ Delipetro.

“To just make it clear for everyone, it’s nothing personal. I love KC and everyone on the team. I have good friends on KC,” clarified marteen.

According to the Czech player, his wish for a role change was the main motivation behind joining Gentle Mates this year. “I just felt like, for my personal career, the options I had — and I was exploring after my contract — I just felt like I wanna make a change in my role,” he said.

“I wanted to play a second duelist/smoker and improve on it, and Gentle Mates gave me a really good opportunity.”

For its third year in VCT, Gentle Mates has gone for a near-complete roster overhaul. Only Patrik ‘Minny’ Hušek remains from last year’s starting line-up. However, he has handed his in-game leader (IGL) responsibilities to Patryk ‘starxo’ Kopczyński.

Starxo has five years of VALORANT esports experience and is now getting the opportunity to compete in VCT for his very first time. Bipo and Americas import Conner ‘GLYPH’ Garcia are in a similar position. Both have spent several years in the tier-two scene without previously making the jump to tier-one.

When asked whether being one of the more experienced players on Gentle Mates might put pressure on his shoulders, marteen responded confidently: “I’m the second youngest on the team, but I’m probably the most experienced. I try to give my experience in terms of how it should work and how things should go. 

“And I think people are taking notes and trying to implement what I’m saying. I think they respect me. I don’t feel so much pressure just because I have two years. I just think that I’m the second youngest still. I’m not that old.” 

Marteen also discussed how the current meta could impact his agent choices during VCT Kickoff. Although he joined Gentle Mates as a smokes player, the team still likes to leverage his proficiency on Yoru, who remains one of the strongest duelists despite slight nerfs throughout the last year.

“I can flex anything if I just have enough time to kinda get the experience going,” assured marteen regarding a possible major nerf to Yoru mid-season.

Two days ago (January 20th), Gentle Mates played its opening series at VCT EMEA Kickoff 2026, confidently taking down FUT Esports 2-0.

“It felt really good to be honest,” commented marteen on his first match of the year. “There was a lot of hype but a lot of calm at the same time. For sure, it could be better in some situations, but we managed to calm it down when we needed to and just played the round pretty calmly.”

He further emphasised his confidence in the roster and its potential to go far this season.

“Just based on practice and what we did and what we’ve worked on, I think we can go very far as long as we keep our composure and we don’t get stressed, don’t get nervous, don’t make stupid mistakes,” the 21-year-old stated.

“As long as we keep our level kind of the same as we did in practice for the last months, I think we can do really good.”

Gentle Mates will re-enter the VCT EMEA stage later today in its upper bracket series versus GIANTX. Fans can tune into the action via the league’s official Twitch and YouTube channels.