VALORANT Masters Copenhagen: Paper Rex start playoffs strong, sweep Guild Esports

The fifth day of the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Stage 2 Masters tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark on Thursday (14 July) saw the playoffs finally kick off.

Singapore's Paper Rex squared off with EMEA's Guild Esports, with APAC's top dogs making short work of their opponents in a 2-0 sweep to advance to the semifinals.

In case you missed Paper Rex's explosive debut in Masters Copenhagen, here's how the action went down.

Paper Rex 2 – 0 Guild Esports

As the champions of the APAC Stage 2 Challengers tournament, Paper Rex skipped the Masters Copenhagen group stage and earned a direct seed to the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Guild Esports earned their playoff berth by blitzing through Group A.

The EMEA team upset Masters Reykjavik champions OpTic Gaming in their opening match then defeated Argentina's KRÜ Esports to take the top seed of Group A.

Game one: Ascent

The match opened in Guild’s map pick, where they unfortunately quickly lost the first pistol and eco round to Paper Rex.

Guild finally notched a score in the third round. But just as they were rearing to make a comeback, PRX once again retaliated with their hyper-aggressiveness to win six rounds in a row, all while the kills were evenly distributed across their roster.

Aaron “mindfreak” Leonheart, in particular, exemplified the Singaporean team’s confidence, as he seamlessly clutched a 1v2 during round 8, putting PRX in the lead at 7-1.

This was shortly followed with a Frenzy 4K from Benedict “Benkai” Tan, as Paper Rex continued to widen the gap between them and Guild.

Fortunately for Guild, the team did manage to stop the bleeding for a couple of rounds, but the first half ended with PRX up by 8-4.

Come the second half, the momentum only kept swinging in Paper Rex’s direction.

With another three rounds in the bag, Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto finally got his hands on an operator, using it to easily execute his lurks and catch Guild by surprise.

After f0rsakeN got a clean opening pick, Wang “Jinggg” Jing Jie followed it up with his Raze, picking off the members of Guild one by one to put the EMEA team at an insurmountable deficit.

Guild tried to push back, but the map ended at 13-4 with Paper Rex victorious.

Game two: Fracture

For game two, the action took to Paper Rex's map pick, Fracture.

Here, the APAC powerhouse quickly won the pistol round, thanks to a 1v1 clutch from mindfreak. Paper Rex also won the next two rounds, with a chaotic 5v5 on round 3 showcasing how well the team worked together.

But just as the map started going into Paper Rex's way again, Guild finally found their footing. Foregoing their slow playstyle, Guild started playing more aggressively to match their opponents, winning a thrifty thanks to Saif “Sayf” Jibraeel and Leo “Leo” Jannesson before also winning the next three rounds.

However, Paper Rex came well-prepared, and managed to win two rounds before a quick back and forth with Guild, ending the first half at a 6-6 tie.

PRX drew first blood in the second pistol round, but Guild took the next three.

From here, both teams went on a frantic back and forth that went in favor of no one. PRX would strike, and Guild would answer with aggression, even managing to reach double digits before their opponents.

With no end in sight for both teams, the map seemed destined for overtime.

At 12-11, Guild took match point and looked set to force the series to a decider. However, Paper Rex was able to secure a defuse by round 24, sending the map to overtime.

Here, Paper Rex wasted no time securing the two rounds they needed off the back of a clutch from Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee to end the map at 14-12 and secure the 2-0 series win.

With today’s results, Paper Rex advanced to the upper bracket semifinals. There they will face EMEA top seed Fnatic, who swept regional rivals FunPlus Phoenix in their own quarterfinals matchup.

Meanwhile, Guild falls into the lower bracket, where they will face FunPlus Phoenix in the tournament's first round of playoff elimination matches.

Masters Copenhagen will see 12 of the top VALORANT teams from all over the world clashing with each other from 10 to 24 July, all for the chance to reign victorious as the Copenhagen champions and claim a spot in VALORANT Champions 2022 in Istanbul come September.

For everything you need to know about Masters Copenhagen, check here.

Feb has been trying to speedrun Super Mario 64 ever since he started playing video games at 11 years old. He has never succeeded, but has completed other video games in the time since. When not playing, he's usually playing music or building Gunpla.

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page and Twitter, as well as our Gaming channel on YouTube.