With just over two weeks left until the start of the tournament, Riot has removed Team RA'AD Team RA'AD MENA Unranked Shniider Yousef Osama Depyro Nour Sherif phaze Karim Fouad YaBoiLewis Lewis Hughes Sand Mark Emad from EMEA Ascension. Joblife Joblife Europe Unranked kamyk Maks Rychlewski doma Domagoj Fancev chiwa Egor Stepanyuk runneR Emil Trajkovski Enzo Enzo Mestari will take their place at the event.

"Team RA'AD was unable to comply with team ownership policies and will not be participating in this year's VCT Ascension EMEA Tournament," Riot's statement read. "Based on Ascension Points, the next eligible team, Joblife, will compete in their place."

"This outcome is the direct result of Riot Games' policy framework, which restricts our participation despite our full operational readiness and ability to compete," RA'AD said in a statement. "We firmly believe that these policies, while respected, would have required us to compromise the legal and professional rights of our players — something we don't accept under any circumstances. Protecting players remains our highest priority."

RA'AD's road to qualifying for Ascension was a long one. In 2025, they captured wins at MENA Resilience North Africa and Levant Split 1 and Split 2, earning them enough points to qualify for Ascension despite missing out on qualification for EMEA Stage 3. This year's tournament would have been the second time the Egyptian organization participated in an Ascension tournament, with their last coming in 2023.

Joblife's season was thought to have ended with its 5th-8th finish at EMEA Stage 3. The French organization is made up five players with experience at the VCT level, with two players being on loan from VCT teams.

This year's EMEA Ascension tournament consists of eight teams split into two Champions-style groups consisting of four teams. Joblife will open play at EMEA Ascension in the group stage against Turkey's ULF Esports ULF Esports Europe Unranked audaz Soner Ekiz d3mur Demir Boğa sturNN Eren Oduncular nekky Anıl Dağdeviren Favian Enes Yiğiter , and is joined in the group by the Polish Enterprise Esports Enterprise Esports Europe Unranked MAGNUM Martin Penkov iluri Ilari Puranen Lime Jacob Foster Proxh Yusuf Emre Tunc swagzor stand-in and Italian DNSTY DNSTY Europe Unranked chapix waddle Wadir Taraki Tag Alessandro Voci Ticey Theo Cranshaw Creamydreamy .