GodLike Esports are reportedly preparing a return to Valorant, with a roster of five experienced South Asian Challengers players for the VCT 2027 Kickoff Open Qualifiers. The line-up was leaked on X on 7 November by Valorant community figure Purab Jyoti Kashyap, who listed Rishi “RvK” Vijayakumar, Azis “azys” Nandang, Willy “sayoo” Ivandra, Kasif “Paradox” Sayyed and Norbu “Karam1l” Tsering.
GodLike have not announced the roster, and none of the five players has publicly confirmed the move. If the report is accurate, it would be the Indian organisation’s third attempt at building a Valorant team, after short-lived rosters in 2021 and 2023.
Kashyap described the group as “an experienced and well-balanced roster on paper”, although he added that he had been hoping to see a new face. That reaction sums up the line-up fairly well. Three of the five players are Indian, while azys is Filipino and sayoo is Indonesian, and all five have spent years on the South Asian Challengers circuit. Several of them have also played together before, which could matter with the Open Qualifiers now only ten days away.
Who are RvK, azys, sayoo, Paradox and Karam1l?
RvK is the most decorated name on the list, with a long record of trophies in the region. He won both 2023 Challengers League South Asia splits with Orangutan, with azys alongside him, before spells at Reckoning Esports, True Rippers and DOT EXE. He then joined S8UL Esports in March 2026, winning the Challengers 2026 South Asia Split 1 Final Stage and finishing second in the Split 2 Playoffs. That runner-up finish came behind sayoo’s No Salary Peek, who won the Split 2 title and later finished fourth at the Challengers 2026 Pacific Last Chance Qualifier.
azys has an even longer list of titles in South Asia, despite spending this year away from the region. After his Orangutan years, he won the Challengers League 2024 South Asia Split 3 Final Stage with Mogo eSports, and then took Challengers 2025 South Asia Stage 2 with Revenant XSpark. He moved to Xipto Esports in Southeast Asia for 2026. The Indonesian sayoo made his name at home, where he won Challengers League Indonesia Split 1 with Bigetron Arctic and reached the 2023 SEA Games final with the national team.
The other two players have both worn GodLike colours before. Karam1l was part of the 2023 roster that GodLike signed in February for the Challengers League South Asia and released five months later, and Paradox stood in for the team during that campaign. Paradox went on to win Challengers League 2024 South Asia Split 2 with Revenant Esports, and he finished second at Challengers 2025 South Asia Stage 2 with Reckoning Esports. Karam1l has spent 2026 with Asterisk, reaching the top four in both South Asia Challengers splits.
Why GodLike’s Valorant return comes now
The timing lines up with Riot’s new VCT 2027 system, which has opened every major stage to qualification. Riot has described the season as one with no guaranteed paths, with Open Qualifiers feeding Kickoff, both Cups and the international events. In South Asia, JioBLAST is running the Kickoff Open Qualifiers in place of NODWIN Gaming, and teams can register on the JioBLAST website until 13 November. A Swiss stage runs from 17 to 20 November, and the top eight teams then move into double-elimination Playoffs from 23 to 29 November, according to BLAST.
Two South Asian teams will advance from those Playoffs, but neither goes straight to Bangkok. As our VCT Pacific 2027 format guide explains, they join a four-team Kickoff Last Chance Qualifier with the Oceania winner and the Southeast Asia runner-up. Only the winner of that event earns the final Open slot at Kickoff, which runs in Bangkok from 14 January to 7 February. The reward for getting there is substantial, because Riot pays US$100,000 to every Open team that qualifies for Kickoff or a Cup, on top of any prize money.
What the leaked roster means for GodLike and Indian Valorant
For GodLike, Valorant has been a hard title to crack. The organisation parted ways with its first roster in 2021, and its 2023 line-up failed to win a regular-season match in Split 1 before it was released in July. Its biggest successes have come in mobile esports instead, from BGMI to Call of Duty: Mobile, where its team is preparing for the World Championship Finals in Mexico City despite visa problems.
A return would also be a welcome boost for a scene that has lost momentum in recent years. As we explored in our analysis of Indian Valorant, falling viewership and reduced investment from organisations have left fewer opportunities for players.
Riot’s Anushka Bhatnagar has said the new format makes Valorant esports “more accessible”, and Riot’s own VCT 2027 explainer sets out how the open system works. Bringing in proven Challengers players rather than unknown talent suggests GodLike want to compete for one of the two qualifying places straight away. Neither GodLike nor the five players had commented on the leak by Saturday evening, and registration for the Open Qualifiers closes on 13 November.
