VCT Pacific’s Paper Rex and EMEA team Gentle Mates have qualified for the VALORANT Masters Santiago Playoffs thanks to their undefeated Swiss Stage runs.
As a result, their opponents, Americas representative NRG and EMEA’s Team Liquid, must survive another round of Swiss Stage matches to secure one of the two remaining Playoffs spots.
NRG Couldn’t Stop Paper Rex’s Aggression
The first series of the day saw Masters Toronto winner Paper Rex take down the reigning VALORANT Champion winner, NRG, 2-1.
Paper Rex’s map pick, Split, was an incredibly close affair, featuring high-tier gameplay and intense gun fights from both teams. PRX’s fast decision-making on defence and NRG punishing its opponent’s aggressive playstyle, led to a 6-6 halftime score. This brawling continued throughout the second half, with Paper Rex fighting and trading kills just slightly more efficiently than NRG to close out the map 13-10.
On Pearl, it was NRG’s turn to come out on top despite Paper Rex winning both pistol rounds. The first half (7-5) saw NRG’s Adam ‘mada’ Pampuch tear through his opponents, even scoring back-to-back Aces. VCT Americas’ third seed then proceeded to melt PRX’s site hits in the second half with the help of an Odin and an Operator. Eventually, NRG won its map pick 13-10 to even the series.
The final showdown on Haven felt like a mirror of map two, but in PRX’s favour. NRG secured both pistol rounds, but Paper Rex converted most of the buy rounds. The Pacific third seed delivered well-coordinated site hits on its attack (8-4) as well as successful retakes in the second half. Despite a valiant last stand from NRG, an ACE from Paper Rex’s Jason ‘f0rsakeN’ Susanto sealed the deal at 13-11.
Gentle Mates Stomps Team Liquid
The second series treated EMEA fans to a regional matchup between its second seed Gentle Mates and third seed Team Liquid, where the French organisation pulled off a dominant 2-0 sweep.
Gentle Mates chose to kick off the series on Pearl, a map that its opponent has historically struggled on. However, Team Liquid surprised the regional rival by becoming the first team to play Harbor at Masters Santiago. In the face of this curveball, Gentle Mates took a few rounds to figure out how to deal with the controller’s utility. The French organisation stabilised in the first half (6-6), but then looked fully unleashed on its attack side to win the map 13-11.
This momentum carried over to Bind, despite it being one of Team Liquid’s strongest maps. Off the back of a pistol round win and excellent calling from in-game leader (IGL) Patryk ‘starxo’ Kopczyński, Gentle Mates achieved a near-flawless 2-10 attack half. To make matters worse, Team Liquid suffered a thrifty loss right after winning the second-half pistol. Locking down all of Team Liquid’s B site pushes, Gentle Mates stole Bind 13-3.
Gentle Mates’ Martin ‘marteen’ Pátek delivered a mastersclass on Yoru across both maps. Thanks to incredible fragging, combined with ice-cold decision-making, marteen accomplished a KDA of 48/25/11 and ACS of 319.
Swiss Stage Enters Elimination Phase
Following their latest victory, Paper Rex and Gentle Mates have become the first Swiss Stage competitors to qualify for the Playoffs at VALORANT Masters Santiago.
Meanwhile, NRG and Team Liquid must prove themselves in the final round of Swiss Stage matches. On March 4th, they will face off against the winners of the lower round games between EDward Gaming and T1, as well as XLG Esports and G2 Esports.
