After suffering twin losses in their previous assignments, Filipino players in Team Secret and Global Esports look to reignite their attempts to secure slots in the playoffs of VCT (Valorant Champions Tour) Pacific: Stage 1 esports tournament being held at Sangam Colosseum in Seoul, South Korea. 

Global Esports will take on Korean powerhouse DRX, while Team Secret will face the monumental task of bringing down Master Bangkok champions T1 on April 7. 

Valorant is a 5v5 tactical shooter video game developed by Riot Games, in which two five-member squads try to outwit and outgun each other using weapons and skills on a round-per-round basis.  

A round win is collected whenever a squad “kills off” everyone in the “enemy” team (called an elimination win) or if a faction reaches their goal: Attackers must be able to plant and detonate the Spike (an explosive device) in one of the sites on the map, while Defenders try to prevent this by holding down plant sites, letting the time run out or defusing the Spike. 

Both teams will get a chance to be Attacker and Defender as they switch sides every 12 rounds. A deuce in the 24th round will send the match into overtime; a team must win two consecutive rounds to claim victory.

Each player of a team pilots an Agent armed with unique abilities that they can buy or charge by eliminating players, as well as guns ranging from pistols to rifles to help out in their main objective of reaching 13 round wins.  

The agent’s ability may fit any of four designated roles: Duelist, who is equipped with offensive-oriented tools to aggressively take space; Initiator, who can gather information or set up other teammates for execution; Controller, who provides coverage using smokes; and Sentinel, who leans toward defensive kits that hold off enemies and flanks.

12 teams competing

Filipino-dominated Global Esports and Team Secret are among the 12 teams competing in VCT Pacific, the game’s highest competitive stage in Asia with a prize pool of $50,000 that started on April 2 and ends on May 2. The teams come from Southeast Asia—South Korea, Japan, “South Asia” and “Oceania.”

Aside from the Pacific, the regional tournaments are EMEA (Spain, France, “DACH,” Turkiye and “MENA”) and Americas (“Latin America” and Brazil), each of which involves 12 teams.

The ten-month season (January to October) is divided into three legs—Kickoff, Split 1 and Split 2. During Split 1, a single-round robin group phase, teams are grouped under Omega and Alpha and battle each other in a best-of-three series format. 

The top four teams will advance to the Playoffs, with a double-elimination bracket, on May 6–18. The top three that will secure their spots to Masters Toronto, the prestigious international tournament, on June 7–22 and go up against the other finishers EMEA and Americas. At stake is a prize pool of $1 million, the Masters trophy and championship points.

The teams with the most championship points at the end of the three splits will book their tickets to the culminating event of the season, Champions 2025 Paris, with a prize pool of $2.25 million. The winning team gets $1 million. 

As of now, Global Esports and Team Secret have lost their second game in the tournament. Global Esports (with a one win-one loss card) is in Group Alpha along with BOOM Esports (2-0), DRX (2-0), Gen. G (1-1), Paper Rex (0-2), and Detonation FocusMe (0-2).  

In Group Omega, Team Secret remains winless (0-2), suffering a 2-0 series sweep from Japan’s ZETA Division (1-1) last March 29. Others in the group are T1 (2-0), Nongshim Redforce (1-1), Rex Regum Qeon (1-1), and TALON (1-1). 

‘A little bit scared’

It had a great start, but Team Secret could not close the opening map Lotus, 11-13, before falling short in its comeback attempt in Icebox, 10-13. Its lineup includes initiators Adrian “invy” Reyes and Brheyanne “Wild0reoo” Reyes, in-game leader (IGL) Jessie Cristy “JessieVash” Cuyco, duelist Jeremy “Jremy” Cabrera, and controller James “2GE” Goopio.

“This is not the result that we expected. I think we were a little bit scared. We were not playing our game, we were just reacting to their [ZETA’s] game,” Brheyanne Reyes said after the match.  

Team Secret saw its 11-6 lead fizzle out on Lotus as ZETA mustered a second wind to a 6-0 run and Shota “SugarZ3ro” Watanabe stuck a spike defuse amid a Team Secrets crossfire for a 1-0 series lead.

The Filipinos tried to mount a comeback in Icebox from a 6-12 deficit as a clutch from Cuyco sparked a 4-0 streak to trim the gap to two. Unfortunately, their hopes were dashed in the 23rd round as a scrappy firefight at A site resulted in their team being wiped out as the spike went down. 

Adrian Reyes led the crew with a 45/30/29 series Kill-Death-Assist (KDA) ratio, dropping 27 of his total frags in Lotus alone, while ZETA Division’s Hikaru “CLZ” Mizutani was hailed as the series’ MVP with a 42/27/9 KDA and an Average Combat Score (ACS) of 244 as Sova. 

Rude awakening

In Group Alpha, Global Esports had a rude awakening from its dream start with a 2-0 defeat from Indonesia’s BOOM Esports last March 31. 

The collective comprising Filipinos Kelly “kellyS” Sedillo, Federico “PapiChulo” Evangelista, and Mark “patrickWHO” Musni, Korean duelist Go “UdoTan” Kyung-won and Russian flex player Savva “Kr1stal” Fedorov was clobbered in its map pick Lotus, 1-13, before losing an 11-13 heartbreaker in Haven.

Global Esports’ dominant form in its win against Detonation FocusMe was nowhere to be found in the opening map with BOOM Esports pulling out all the stops at its defending half to limit team captain Kelly “kellyS” Sedillo and company to a lone round win.

The team finally got a foothold in Haven after taking its first pistol win of the series and the round after to put its opposition within striking distance, 6-8. At 9-12, Sedillo singlehandedly wiped out the BOOM squad to get at C site and ace, energizing his squad toward saving three match points. 

Looking to send the map into overtime, Global Esports found its efforts futile as it was gunned down in the retake attempt at C to close out the series, 11-13. Go anchored the crew with 27 kills using Iso, followed by Sedillo who contributed 19 frags with the sentinel pick Cypher.   

Despite the loss, assistant coach Donnie “Elevated” Chell said in a postgame interview: “…We came back on Haven and I’m proud of the boys for fighting on that map.”  

He added: “Couple more rounds go our way there and I think we take the series in three [games], but it didn’t happen today, and we’ll be back stronger [in our next game].”

On the flipside, Hildegard “Shiro” Arnaldo was hailed the series MVP with 21/15/12 KDA and a 260 ACS leading the way for the Indonesia-based squad as Sova.   

Both Team Secret and Global Esports will try to regain ground in the playoffs. They will close out the third week of play with Global Esports facing the undefeated DRX squad while Team Secret gears up against Masters Bangkok titlists T1 on April 7.