Filipino squads playing in the VCT (Valorant Champions Tour) Pacific: Stage 1 completed their series in contrasting fashion in last week’s final matches, with Team Secret (TS) taking their first win of the year and Global Esports (GE) failing to enter the playoffs.

Team Secret ended their winning drought after 288 days when they downed top-seeded Rex Reagum Qeon on Sunday, April 20, at Sangam Coliseum in Seoul. Still, TS finished last with a 1-4 win-loss record in the tournament’s Group Omega.

In the other group, Alpha, Global Esports failed to nail the fourth and final playoff berth last Friday, April 18, losing to Paper Rex (PRX) in a winner-take-all duel.

Read: VCT Pacific: Filipinos lose Week 3 games; playoff chances slim

Adrian “invy” Reyes took control for the Manila-based Team Secret, generating a Kill-Death-Assist (KDA) statline of 64/43/16 and clutching pivotal rounds in the third map, Lotus.

“I think this match showed our true potential as a team,” Reyes said in the post-match interview, explaining an improvement in his squad’s performance and in their confidence as the tournament’s underdogs.

‘Nothing to lose’

“[…] we know that there’s no more high stakes, [we] have nothing to lose any more so we showed our true potential, so yeah it [the win] really means a lot to us,” he said.

Head coach Ji “meow” Dong-jun echoed the same sentiments, shifting his stalwarts’ focus to relieve pressure instead of making drastic changes coming into this bout.

“What worked today isn’t the change of comps. We didn’t do any of those actually. Instead, we actually made a talk on how ‘let’s try to play more free’ like, no pressure guys,” Ji said.

After falling flat in their comeback attempt in Haven, 13-15, Team Secret wasted no time to retaliate in Ascent, utilizing a pistol round win to open with a 4-0 start.

The Filipinos kept their foot on the gas as they continued to surge with a flawless win at the 10th round to bring their advantage to its biggest at 9-1. They proved to be too much for their Indonesian opponents, swarming them at the entrance of B Main at the 18th round to even the series at 1-1.

A nip-and-tuck battle ensued in the opening rounds of Lotus, before a 1v2 clutch from Reyes sparked a five-round run to put Team Secret in a comfortable 8-4 lead by halftime. RRQ, however, refused to bend as they created a 5-1 charge of its own to put the map into a deadlock with nine rounds apiece.

In the 19th round, Reyes again delivered, taking down four members of the RRQ squad and defusing the spike with less than a second left to lift Team Secret toward double digits.

The Adobo Gang never looked back, taking the two succeeding rounds and defusing RRQ’s last-ditch attempt as they closed the split with a victory. Aside from invy, Brheyanne “Wild0reoo” Reyes backstopped the team’s offensive as he went ballistic, pouring 21 of his 56 kills in Lotus as Raze.

Duelist Maksim “Jemkin” Batorov anchored the opposition with a 56/54/7 KDA and an Average Combat Score (ACS) of 222.

Missing the playoffs

In Group Alpha, Global Esports narrowly missed the last trip to the playoffs after bowing to Asia Pacific juggernauts Paper Rex (PRX).

A 26-19 advantage in First Blood kills failed to materialize toward round wins for the Filipino-dominated crew as PRX’s aggression got the better of them in Split and Lotus, respectively.

Led by initiator Savva “Kr1stal” Fedorov hot start, Global Esports’ attacks were able to penetrate the PRX defense in the opening map as they brought the APAC giants to a 5-7 scoreline before switching sides.

Chaos started to unfold in the second half, with PRX flooding the plant sites round after round, rendering the Filipino-dominated team winless for the rest of the first map.

Global Esports found itself in a similar scenario before halftime in Lotus, 5-7, before taking the pistol fight of the second half as well as the round after to equalize the map at the 14th.

What seemed to be a fortified defense cracked again, with Paper Rex finding holes to scrap a 4-0 run and positioning itself at series point, 8-12. A quadruple kill from Kyung-won “Udotan” Go allowed Global Esports to save a match point, but waned out as they got picked off at the 22th round.

Derrick “Deryeon” Yee stuffed the stat sheets with a 30/34/11 KDA, while Go and Fedorov combined for 59 frags in the span of two maps.

For PRX, flex player Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee remained cool and composed, showing up with a 43/24/14 statline using Viper and Vyse, respectively.

Team Secret finished in sixth and last place in Group Omega with a 1-4 record, behind Zeta Division (2-3). Nongshim Redforce (2-3) , T1 (3-2), Talon Esports (3-2) and Rex Regum Queon (3-2) advanced to the playoffs.

In Group Alpha, Global Esports occupied fifth place (1-4) ahead over winless Detonation FocusMe. Paper Rex (2-3), Gen.G (3-2), DRX (4-1) and BOOM Esports (5-0) completed the postseason cast.

The playoffs will start on April 26, and the Top 3 teams will book their tickets to Masters Toronto.