Aurora signs VALORANT roster led by Champions runner-up

Aurora Gaming announced its first competitive VALORANT roster for 2027 on Wednesday, Oct. 28. The Serbian organization revealed the five-player lineup before the new season.

Derke will play alongside Nikita “trexx” Cherednichenko, Ričardas “Boo” Lukaševičius, Egor “chiwa” Stepanyuk and Vitaliy “B1SK” Emelyanov. Several players have competed in the top tier of the VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA circuit.

Aurora CEO Adalyat Mamedov described the roster as one of the fastest the organization has assembled. The players signed their contracts shortly before the registration deadline for the qualifiers. Mamedov credited Alexander Lemeshev, Aurora’s head of esports, with helping complete the negotiations.

“Without a doubt, this was the fastest I’ve ever seen a roster come together,” Mamedov said. “Somehow, everything seemed to fall into place in just a matter of days: a great coach, amazing players, negotiations, and contracts signed just minutes before the qualifier registration deadline.”

Derke joins Aurora after reaching the Champions 2026 final with Team Vitality. Vitality lost the series 3-1 to LOUD. Before joining the French organization, the Finnish player won VCT LOCK//IN São Paulo and Masters Tokyo with Fnatic in 2023.

The roster reunites Derke with trexx, who was his teammate at Vitality in 2025. Trexx returned to Team Liquid for Stage 2 of VCT EMEA 2026, reached the regional final and competed at Champions with the organization.

Boo previously captained Team Heretics to second place at Champions 2024. The Lithuanian player also reached the Masters Shanghai final that year and won the 2025 Esports World Cup.

Aurora is not among the eight partner teams selected for VCT EMEA in 2027. The organization will need to qualify through the open competition for a place in the 12-team EMEA Kickoff. The event will include eight partner teams and four qualifiers, with two qualifying places assigned to Europe, one to Türkiye and one to the Middle East and North Africa.

The European open qualifiers are scheduled for Nov. 5-8 and Nov. 12-15. The playoffs are scheduled for Nov. 26-Dec. 5. Non-partner teams that qualify for Kickoff will receive $100,000 in financial support.

Aurora has not announced when the roster will play its first official match.

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