Team Vitality has promoted Scutt to head coach of its VALORANT team for the 2027 season, filling the role left open when PAL departed two weeks after the Champions grand final. The club announced its finalised coaching staff at 17:17 UTC on 10 November, with SLK moving up to assistant coach. Vitality has also brought in Szed as a performance coach, to help the team “aim for the top” next year. The changes complete the staff around a roster that has already lost its best-known player since the season ended in Shanghai.
Scutt confirmed the move in his own post about 80 minutes later. “Happy to say that I will be taking on a new role for Vitality next season and continuing this incredible journey with the group,” he wrote. He added that he was “extremely fortunate to be joined by two incredible coaches who will bring so much to this team in 2027”. The Irish coach lists Fnatic and BBL Esports among his previous teams, and he worked under PAL throughout Vitality’s run to the 2026 Champions final.
How Vitality’s 2026 season ended in the Champions grand final
Vitality’s 2026 was the best season in the club’s VALORANT history. The team beat G2 Esports 2-0 to reach the upper bracket final at VALORANT Champions 2026, with Derke and Jamppi starring on Yoru. It then fought back through the lower bracket for a rematch with LOUD in the grand final in Shanghai on 18 October. LOUD won that best-of-five 3-1, and Scutt wrote afterwards that his players’ work all year had been “deserving of” more.
The departures began within a week of the final. On 24 October, Vitality said farewell to Derke, in a post that passed 840,000 views, the duelist it credited with bringing the club “our first VCT trophy” and its first Champions grand final. Two days later, it thanked PAL “for showing us that the mountains were within reach”, calling him “the key in writing a new chapter for Team Vitality in VALORANT”. Scutt paid his own tribute the same day, writing that working alongside PAL had been “an immense honour”.
What Vitality’s 2027 VALORANT staff and roster look like so far
By promoting from within, Vitality has kept its VALORANT staff in the hands of people who already know the players and the system. Both Scutt and SLK were described as promoted, which means they were already part of the 2026 set-up that reached the world final. Szed is the only new arrival, and Vitality did not say where Szed has worked before, or how the performance role will be split from the head coach’s. Performance coaches in esports usually focus on routines, communication and the mental side of competition, rather than on drafts and tactics.
The changes are part of a wider reshuffle across Vitality’s esports teams this month. On 9 November, its League of Legends team parted ways with head coach Pad and with Arvindir, after a season that took that roster to the club’s first international event since 2018. Vitality has not linked the two decisions, and each of its teams runs its own coaching staff. The VALORANT team’s choice of continuity stands out against that backdrop, because it keeps the people who took the club to its first Champions final.
The new staff will inherit a team in transition. Derke has since joined Aurora for 2027 alongside Boo and trexx, as our guide to the biggest VCT transfers sets out. Jamppi and profek were still posting as Vitality players this week, although the club has not confirmed its full 2027 line-up. Reports have linked jawgemo with a move to Vitality, but neither the club nor the player has confirmed it.
Vitality’s place in the league itself is secure. The club announced on 19 October that it had been accepted as a VALORANT partner for the next two years, keeping it in VCT EMEA through 2028. It was one of 32 organisations named in Riot’s renewed VCT partner list, which left out several well-known teams. Partnership guarantees Vitality a place in every EMEA stage, so the 2027 staff will not have to fight through open qualifiers.
Vitality also thanked Bernie, a member of its 2026 staff, for her “hard work throughout the year” in a separate post on 10 November. The rest of the EMEA field is reshaping quickly, with FUT Esports, Team Heretics and others making changes since the Champions final. The VCT 2027 season begins with regional Kickoff events early next year, and Riot has already started its EMEA qualifiers, where it recently disqualified Team BONK for cheating.
