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Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2023 started off a new era in Valorant esports with the partnership model they introduced. The international split of the tournament has been divided into three leagues: Pacific, EMEA, and Americas. Each of these has ten partner teams competing to qualify for this year's Masters event in Tokyo and ultimately for the Champions event in LA, where the Valorant World Champions for 2023 will be crowned.
VCT 2023 Pacific started on March 25, 2023 in Seoul, South Korea and features some of the best teams from the Asia-Pacific region. Paper Rex, from Singapore, is one of the participating teams in this competition. They are also one of the most popular and battle-tested teams in the league, outshone only by the Korean giants, DRX.
That being said, their performance in the tournament so far (and VCT 2023 at large) has been fairly mediocre compared to the expectations of fans.
Paper Rex looks like they are yet to find their groove in VCT Pacific League
Paper Rex won their first series against Detonation FocusMe, taking the first map (Pearl) in a dominant fashion, closing out the second (Lotus) off the back of heroics from Khalish "d4v41" Rusyaidee, which even their IGL Benedict "Benkai" Tan admitted to in an exclusive post-match interview with Sportskeeda Esports.
Their second series in VCT Pacific was against a much tougher opponent: Team Secret. It was here that things started to take a turn. The #wgaming squad put Wang "Jinggg" Jie on Raze for all three maps, rotating Jason "f0rsakeN" Susanto from Yoru on Haven, to Neon on Fracture, and ultimately to Jett on Split.
Sportskeeda Esports asked coach Alex "alecks" Salle in the post-match scrum interview about the idea behind the composition and how well he thought they were able to execute it. He noted:
"One is we were not as aggressive as we should've been. That was the big reason why we lost the last two maps. With our double Duelist composition, we should have been in their faces a lot more and taken more risks. We were a bit too careful on Fracture and Split, and that cost us dearly."
Although the supporting act looked pretty much on point in the series, it was the Duelist duo's performance that left fans wanting more. While Jinggg put up impressive numbers, the team's explosive playstyle and the methodical madness they typically exhibit on maps was noticeably absent.
d4v41, who was also at the interview, echoed this thought:
"I think we should have been more explosive since we were running double Duelist."
It may be too early to conclude whether Paper Rex has lost their edge in VCT 2023, since they have only played three official matches in the tournament so far. However, their next matches are against T1 and DRX. These teams are known to seize every opportunity, so PRX will need to work on their game plan.
