Two esports teams with Filipino players bowed to their Korean powerhouse opponents on Week 3 of the VCT (Valorant Champions Tour) Pacific: Stage 1 in Seoul last April 7, leaving them little chances of reaching the playoffs.

The Manila-based Team Secret is still in search of a breakthrough in Group Omega after falling to Masters Bangkok champions T1 in a backbreaking three-map series.

Despite the Filipinos’ regained confidence to secure the second map Icebox to force the final map Lotus, ghosts of the past continued to haunt them. Their errors overwhelmed their hopes for a victory in the closing moments of the final map.

“Coming into Lotus we had really good momentum but we sort of just crumbled [under] pressure. I think the team was just panicking a lot of the times [in our round losses],” Adrian “invy” Reyes said during the postgame press conference. 

In Group Alpha, Global Esports bore the brunt of another 2-0 sweep, this time in the hands of DRX, the VCT Pacific Kickoff 2025 champion. 

A 3-13 stomping at Ascent shook Global Esports’ individual and team performances as they dropped their map pick Split, 9-13, afterwards.

“Losing our first map to such a big degree was a little bit too much for us to overcome,” Kyung-won “UdoTan” Go said.  

Team Secret remained at the bottom of Group Omega with a 0-3 record behind Nongshim Redforce and Zeta Division (1-2) and TALON Esports and Rex Regum Qeon (2-1). T1, the top seed, earned the first ticket to the playoffs with a 3-0 standing. 

In Group Alpha, Global Esports is at fourth (1-2) behind DRX and BOOM Esports (3-0) and Gen.G (2-1), and ahead of Paper Rex and Detonation FocusMe (0-3). The two leaders are joining the playoffs.

(To understand how the game is played, see “VCT Pacific: Filipinos look for rebound after Week 2 misfires” in CoverStory.) 

Counterpunch 

After conceding the opening map Haven, 6-13, Team Secret delivered a powerful counterpunch in Icebox as their defensive masterclass limited T1 to a measly three rounds at the end of the first half.

Yu “BuZz” Byung-chul became the spark for the Korean collective as they rallied with a 6-1 run, torching the Pinoy squad’s lead to a single round, 10-9.  

Refusing to back down, Team Secret duelist Jeremy “Jremy” Cabrera went berserk with a triple kill at the 20^th round with James “2GE” Goopio scooping four frags at 21^st to push them toward map point, 12-9. 

The squad put down the ultimatum as they wiped out the T1 crew in B site to even the series with one map apiece.

Team Secret came out guns blazing at the opening of the deciding map Lotus. Brheyanne “Wild0reoo” Reyes dished out a quad kill at the fifth round to take an early 4-1 advantage en route to a 7-5 attacking half.  

But the chinks in their armor started to show right after the side switch as the Koreans exploited their defensive lapses to string six consecutive rounds and bury them in a 6-12 hole. 

Curtains dropped on round 21 as T1’s Young-sub “Sylvan” Ko unleashed his ultimate, Viper’s Pit, to plant the spike at C site and pick off a lone Cabrera to close out the match. 

Adrian Reyes led Team Squad in the stat sheets again, tallying a kill-death-assist (KDA) ratio of 49/46/28 and an average combat score (ACS) of 217 across the three maps. Cabrera popped off in Icebox, delivering 25 of his 43 kills as Iso. 

On the flipside, T1’s in-game leader Yu did the heavy lifting as the series MVP with a KDA 67/39/9, flexing with a different agent for each map.

Team Secret’s head coach Dong-jun “meow” Ji cited improvements in their performance compared to last week’s defeat from ZETA Division. “We are better than last week, that’s for sure. A lot of confidence is up right now, so it’s pretty good,” he said.   

Ji cited the change in their agent picks as the turning point for their victory at Icebox. “It did make a difference when they were playing a comfort agent,” he explained after reverting Jessie Cristy “JessieVash” Cuyco and Reyes in using their signature agents Sova and KAY/O, respectively.

Moving forward, the tactician looks to put more priority in comfort as he builds up the team’s confidence for the remaining matches. 

Uphill climb 

A Team Ace from DRX was the start of an uphill climb for Global Esports as they were blitzed round after round in Ascent, resulting in a 3-9 deficit. 

The Koreans flexed their championship prowess after halftime as they shut down Global Esports’ advances to move up 1-0 in the series. 

Controller Federico “Papi” Evangelista regrouped the team to open Split with a bang, mounting a solid 5-0 defensive start. DRX slowly crawled its way back to the game with a late run, with an elimination win evening things up at 6-6. 

A scrappy pistol and buy round put Global Esports on the driver’s seat for the last time at 8-6, before the defense snuffed out their attacks once more with a triple kill from DRX’s Park “Estrella” Geon slamming the door on any chance of a Global Esports comeback.  

Filipino sentinel Kelly “kellyS” Sedillo anchored the team with a 23/33/10 performance to go along with a 184 ACS. Go topped the fragging list with 25 kills using Cypher. 

DRX’s Min-hyuk “Flashback” Cho was hailed as the series’ MVP with a 41/23/7 KDA, notching 25 eliminations as Neon in Split.  

Global Esports’ head coach Donnie “Elevated” Chell aired his frustrations at the team’s slow start leading to their recent defeats. “Going down 0-1 to a team like DRX is never gonna go well for us,” he said. 

He explained the calibrations following the unprecedented departure of their former head coach, Preston “Juv3nile” Dornon, who was slapped with a yearlong ban due to breaches in the Riot Games Global Code of Conduct. “It’s kind of different being in the head coaching slot where everything is on you,” he said.  

Chell complimented their sixth man Derrick “Deryeon” Yee, who had joined him in the coaching booth: “Having Derrick in the booth was a breath of fresh air because he was very good with the players and he’s obviously a player [as well], and it was helpful to have him and his energy and ideas.”  

With Global Esports stuck at fourth in Group Alpha just above the winless crews of Paper Rex and Detonation FocusMe, Chell emphasized how their next fixture will dictate the team’s pace heading into their last matches. 

“Momentum-wise, I think that game is probably the most important one of the seasons,” he said. “Obviously, we have two teams in our group that are 0-3 so somebody needs to win, somebody needs to make the playoffs.”  

Two playoff spots are still up for grabs in Group Alpha.

Team Secret will open the fourth week of play against Korea’s Nongshim Redforce (1-2) on April 12, while Global Esports will try to return to the win column versus Gen.G on April 13.