Paper Rex has been competing in Valorant’s biggest tournaments since 2021, winning bronze twice and silver twice. In Toronto, the team finally won its first global trophy – as one of the biggest underdogs.
It was a close final between EMEA’s reigning champions Fnatic and the Pacific region’s third-placed team, Paper Rex: Fnatic forced overtime twice on four maps, winning one of them – but ultimately had to admit defeat with a score of 1:3.
Final of contrasting play styles
While Paper Rex is known for its aggressive play style, Fnatic shines with coordinated re-takes and patience. However, the European representative often gave up too much space, which Paper Rex was then able to exploit to act from surprising positions after successful plants.
Jason ‘f0rsakeN’ Susanto stood out in particular and was voted MVP of the tournament. After missing out on the Masters Bangkok, he took on the role of in-game leader (IGL) and led his team to their first global tournament trophy.
From barely qualifying to Masters winner
While Paper Rex had been one of the strongest teams in the Pacific region in the past, the Singapore-based organization traveled to Toronto as the absolute underdog. After a disastrous start to the regular season, it was a player change that turned things around. Duellist Patrick “PatMen” Mendoza came from the Southeast Asian Challengers League, where Paper Rex narrowly reached the playoffs on the last day of the season.
During the group stage, Paper Rex built momentum against the two European representatives, Team Heretics and Team Liquid, and the organization did not lose a single game in the knockout rounds until the final. Even tournament favorites G2 Esports from the US were defeated decisively.
The victorious players couldn’t hold back their emotions after the game: several times during the winner’s interviews, they started to answer questions and had to stop in tears.
“The title means everything to us. It’s the big goal. I didn’t plan on crying, but it just comes out,” said Khalish ‘d4v41’ Rusyaidee. He is one of three players who finished runners-up in the Masters tournament in Copenhagen three years ago and were also part of the team that lost in the 2023 World Cup final.
Fan favorite on the global stage
Even back then, the team had become a fan favorite thanks to its entertaining style of play. This characteristic has remained to this day: fans cheered on the team in Toronto with train noises, and the description “W-Gaming” is almost synonymous with Paper Rex in Valorant esports.
“There are many ways to play Valorant. I wouldn’t say there’s one best way – but this is the Paper Rex way. And we’re going to keep playing like this. Just because we won doesn’t mean the train is going to stop here,” said player Wang ‘Jinggg’ Jing Jie.
Jinggg is also a veteran of the team. He left Paper Rex in October 2023 to do his military service in Singapore. However, a medical issue exempted him from this, and he was able to celebrate his return just six months later.