Sentinels have released Gabriel “cortezia” Cortez and Yassin “Reduxx” Aboulalazm as unrestricted free agents, chief executive Rob Moore has confirmed. In a post at 19:05 UTC on 10 November, or 11:05am in Los Angeles, Moore said the club had told both players last week that they would be free to leave. The move means Cortez “will now have the ability to compete and live in Brazil”, according to Moore. He added that both players “lived through a rough 2026 and weren’t able to shine”, and that he looks forward “with some fear” to meeting them in the server again.
Moore did not explain the terms, but an unrestricted free agent can usually sign with any team without a transfer fee. That makes both players easy targets in one of the busiest VALORANT off-seasons in years, which our guide to the biggest VCT transfers tracks. Neither Cortez nor Reduxx had commented on X by 19:30 UTC. Fans quickly began linking Cortez with Brazilian teams, although no club has confirmed any talks.
Why Sentinels let cortezia and Reduxx go after 2026
Both players arrived as part of a fresh start that did not work. Sentinels announced Cortez from MIBR in November 2025, after the Brazilian made his top-flight debut that year and helped MIBR reach Masters Toronto and a top-six finish at Champions Paris. Reduxx was a home-grown pick, having been a founding member of the Sentinels academy team before joining the main roster as a sixth player for 2025. He had previously played in North American Challengers for Oxygen Esports in 2023.
The 2026 season went badly almost from the start. Sentinels won one of four matches at VCT Americas Kickoff and finished joint ninth, then finished joint ninth again in Stage 1 after a 2-3 record. The club replaced head coach Kaplan with Ewok, the former RRQ coach, in February, but the change did not turn things around. Sentinels finished joint seventh in Stage 2 and missed both Masters events and Champions, which Vitality and LOUD went on to light up in Shanghai.
The Sentinels 2027 roster so far
Sentinels have rebuilt quickly since the end of the season. The club secured its place as a VCT partner team on 19 October, joining the renewed list of 32 VCT partner teams for 2027 and 2028. On 2 November, it signed the duelist OXY from Cloud9 in a signing post that passed 1.7 million views. The next day it added world champion brawk, before confirming on 4 November that johnqt, the team’s in-game leader, would stay.
Sentinels made two more signings before the weekend, starting with canezerra on 6 November. The club called him “a prodigy in the server” and an Ascension champion, ready to step up to the top flight. A day later, it brought back Zellsis, who returns to the organisation after a season away, in a post that drew more than 27,000 likes. That gives Sentinels five confirmed players for 2027, and transfer insiders on X have linked Keiko with the club, although Sentinels has not announced him.
Where cortezia could go next in Brazil
Moore’s wording suggests Cortez wanted to move closer to home. VCT Americas matches are played in Los Angeles, so a Brazilian player in the league usually relocates to the US. Moore did not say whether Cortez is heading to a Brazilian team in the league or elsewhere, and Sentinels made no official statement on its own channels. The Brazilian market is unusually open this winter, after MIBR benched its entire roster in October, leaving stars such as aspas and zekken available. Cortez has only played two seasons in the top flight, so he would join a new team with two years of VCT experience behind him.
The next step for Reduxx is less clear, because he has spent most of his career inside the Sentinels system, and his posts on X show him playing ranked matches since the season ended. Both players are free to sign with any team while the off-season transfer window stays open, and several VCT Americas partners are still finalising their line-ups. Releasing two starters without a fee also gives rival clubs a cheaper route to players with recent VCT experience. The VCT 2027 season begins with regional Kickoff events early next year, and Sentinels have not announced when their new roster will play its first match.
