Guild Esports bench Bonkar, draken, and Yacine in major shake up

Guild Esports has benched three out of five of their Valorant roster as the British organisation looks to rebuild for next year.

All three players, Malkolm "bonkar" Rench, Yacine Laghmari and William "draken" Fant Sundin are still under contract but have been given permission to look for opportunities elsewhere.

Leo Jannesson and Saif "Sayf" Jibraeel will remain, as the team prepare for next year's Valorant Champions Tour having failed to qualify for December's Valorant Champions.

The majority of the all-Swedish roster had been playing together since July of last year, first as Bonk, then as Guild Esports.

They quickly earned the reputation as one of the best teams in Europe, regularly reaching the latter stages of competitions but crucially failing to win any.

They also were unable to secure a place at a LAN event, failing to qualify for Masters Berlin and most recently, falling short in the Last Chance Qualifier for Valorant Champions, losing 3-1 to Team Liquid in the grand final.

The failure to get to LAN is one that Yacine, who released a statement following being benched, feels robbed the roster of showing what they could really do

"We never made any LANs, which is pretty damn sad because that is where I think we would have truly shined," said Yacine. "I guess it was never written for us to get there together, but maybe we'll get to face each other in the future instead."

Yacine also said that he and bonkar will look to join or create a team together.

"We did build NiP together and then our beautiful BONK to finally getting Guild Top 4. Now we seek another home so we can get those trophies and eventually conquer the world."

Where Guild look is less clear, they tried and failed to replace Draken in June of this year, opting to re-sign the player. It is likely the previously all-Swedish roster will have to cast the net further if they hope to truly improve the roster in Valorant's second full-year as an esport.

Featured image courtesy of Guild Esports.