G2 Esports and T1 suffer bad start at VALORANT Masters Santiago

Day two at VALORANT Masters Santiago saw VCT Americas giant G2 Esports and Pacific’s T1 suffer 0-2 sweeps in their opening matches.

Meanwhile, Paper Rex (Pacific) and Team Liquid (EMEA) scored their first victories in Chile and will face NRG and Gentle Mates in their respective Swiss Stage winners’ matches on March 2nd.

The day kicked off with an iconic match-up between three-time VCT Americas 2025 champion G2 Esports and Masters Toronto winner Paper Rex. These two rosters have faced each other at countless global VCT events, with Paper Rex coming out on top this time around (2-0).

Map one saw G2 lose momentum despite good starts in both halves on Split. On its attack, the Americas’ second seed converted its bonus round, but swiftly lost control of the map after an early Paper Rex timeout. From there on, PRX looked fearless in its fast site retakes and defender-side aggression (8-4). Whilst G2 went on a five-round win streak in the second half, hero plays from Paper Rex ultimately cost the Americas side the map (9-13).

On G2’s map pick, Corrode, Paper Rex had another strong first half, leveraging its defence-sided Vyse utility. Meanwhile, its opponent could only scrape five rounds together thanks to a few impactful mid-round calls as well as overextension from Paper Rex. In the second half, however, G2 looked particularly disjointed. Paper Rex converted its attack-bonus round and soon secured the series 13-5.

The Pacific third seed’s flex player, Jason ‘f0rsakeN’ Susanto, went on a tear across both Corrode halves whilst showing his Viper for the very first time in pro play. With a KDA of 41/26/16, he was also the highest-rated player of the series.

In the second series of the day, VCT EMEA’s Team Liquid pulled off a 2-0 upset against Masters Bangkok champion T1.

Team Liquid chose Breeze as the first map of the series, where EMEA’s third seed outclassed T1 in terms of macro gameplay. During its defence, Team Liquid mixed aggressive set strats with ratty plays. T1, on the other hand, relied heavily on individual hero plays to convert rounds, whilst showing underwhelming ultimate usage across both halves. Off the back of an 8-4 half, Team Liquid confidently secured its map pick 13-8.

Haven started off with a more competitive first half. While T1 struggled against Team Liquid’s oppressive double dives, impactful frags and Fade utility from Kim ‘stax’ Gu-taek helped the team conclude its defence half 7-5. The Pacific side then overwhelmed its opponent on the attack. However, Team Liquid eventually figured out how to shut down T1’s pushes and won the series 15-13 in overtime.

With the first round of Swiss Stage games concluded, Masters Santiago is now heading into the winners’ and losers’ matches.

The draw for the next set of games took place after the opening round concluded; however, it was held again five hours later at the hotel due to a mistake during the broadcast.

As a result, the following Round 2’s higher matches will take place on March 2nd, starting at 6 PM BST:

On March 3rd, the lower seeds will then fight for survival in the tournament:

All Swiss Stage matches will be broadcast via the official VALORANT esports Twitch and YouTube channels.