You can’t stop greatness.
In a battle of regional champions, Paper Rex (PRX) conquered China’s Edward Gaming (EDG) in a gritty 2-1 series comeback before an electrifying crowd inside the Copper Box Arena in London last July 19 to play in the grand finals of the Valorant Masters London.
What was anticipated to be one of the best matchups in the tournament delivered with two maps going to overtime as EDG claimed a cardiac opener on Breeze (13-15), before PRX surged back in Fracture (14-12) and Split (13-6) to mark their third consecutive Grand Finals appearance in a Masters event.
Paper Rex now stands one step away from their second Masters trophy and a $350,000 (roughly P21 million) cut of the million-dollar prize pool, to be decided by a best-of-five series on championship on Sunday, June 21, 9 p.m. (in Manila).
Paper Rex duelist Wang Jing “Jinggg” Jie set off a series-high 68-elimination blowout piloting Omen and Raze to lead his squad during the three-hour slugfest, while Filipino initiator Adrian “invy” Reyes went huge as Skye in the decider at Split, top fragging with a kill-death-assist (KDA) statline of 20/10/17.
Zhang “Smoggy” Zhao brought the firepower for the Chinese squad with 56 kills across three maps as agents Harbor, Phoenix and Raze, respectively.
Strong start
Paper Rex persisted on their aggressive playstyle, capitalizing on a 41-32 First Blood advantage across the three maps, with Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto nabbing 15 of the total First Kills for PRX.
The Pacific representatives also kicked off most of their games on the right footing, securing five out of the six pistol rounds, as well as converting the second frame afterward.
“Game 1 and Game 2 both [went to] OT, so I think if we lost pistol [rounds], we would have lost [the maps], so I’m really glad that we are working on the pistols and it showed today,” Jie said in a post-game interview.
PRX currently holds the highest win-rate in Pistols throughout the event, sitting at 75% and dropping only four of their 16 total rounds.
Team captain Ahmad Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee praised Susanto for their strategies to push their momentum early on. “Usually for the pistol rounds, [it] was the GOAT himself, f0rsakeN, cooking in the rounds,” he said.
Assistant coach Ashton “Wendler” Wendler pointed out that this aspect of their game was still a work in progress since their Stage 1 run in VCT Pacific. Their pistol win-rate then was around 43%, one of the lowest among the teams in Masters London.
“Obviously, everyone pointed out that we are kind of a little weak on the pistols side, but we didn’t think it was anything extreme. We’re unlucky at times and sometimes protocols fall apart,” said Wendler.
He deflected credit to the improvements, saying Susanto was the mastermind of these improvements. “Usually for the pistol rounds, [I one who thought] was the GOAT himself, forsaken, cooking in the rounds,” he said.
‘Think like a goldfish’
Head coach Alexandre “alecks” Sallé commended his team’s stern mentality throughout the series, recovering quickly after a meltdown in Breeze where major lapses doomed PRX to losing their three-round lead at match point leading up to the overtime loss.
“If … hits the fan, try to forget,” the French coach said. “That is why we make sure the boys understand that we still have confidence, we still have two maps coming and we try our hardest and we see what happens.”
Rusyaidee said experience has helped them out in overcoming these losses mentally. “Personally,” he said. “the experience from the past grand finals definitely helps me in terms of being calm I would say, even on our playstyle now even though we manage to fumble a few rounds, we reset quicker now.”
Paper Rex set the tone early during Fracture, taking over from the get-go with a triple kill from Reyes secured a 5-1 advantage in the first half. Edward Gaming, however, capitalized on the early duels to outnumber their opposition, clawing their way back to a 7-5 lead at halftime.
Stemming from a clean elimination win to start their attacking side, PRX mounted six unanswered rounds to go up double digits, with Ilia “something” Petrov going ballistic with a quadra kill on the 21st round to secure match point.
Facing defeat, Wan “Chichoo” Shunzhi found an early elimination toward Jie that snowballed to a round win, followed by two map points saved to push the game to overtime.
Paper Rex avoided another overtime collapse behind Jie’s heroics, eviscerating three EDG members on the 26th round to push the series to a decider.
A back-and-forth situation ensued in the opening moment in Split, until a clean A site retake tipped the balance to PRX’s advantage, sparking a 5-1 run for a huge four-round lead heading to their attacking side.
After dropping the first two rounds after the switch, Reyes salvaged W Gaming’s B site hit after pulling off a 1v3 clutch to restart their momentum.
PRX continued to roll past their Chinese counterparts, blitzing with a 4-0 run and dropping EDG down to the lower bracket.
Edward Gaming and Leviathan will figure in an all-or-nothing duel for the last spot for the grand finals the day before.
