Paper Rex swept XERXIA Esports 3-0 in the best-of-5 grand finals series to become the VALORANT Challengers Tour 2022 APAC Stage 2 Champions.
A Quick Grand Finals For Paper Rex
Paper Rex originally lost the first four rounds of their first game at Icebox to XERXIA who came fresh from their victory against Team Secret earlier in the day. However, a quick timeout gave them the change of pace they needed. After that, they proceeded to take control of the reigns and went on an astonishing 8-round win streak to end the half 8-4 in their favor. From there, the second half went for quite a bit more as XERXIA climbed to get four more rounds before Paper Rex closed it out 13-8.
The second game at Fracture was a bit of a speedrun as Paper Rex won it 13-4. All throughout the game, Paper Rex hastened the pace, turned up the heat, and did not allow for XERXIA to have space to breathe. Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto led the charge on Fracture as he led the team with his 24/9/5 KDA.
With the series matchpoint, Paper Rex wasted no time and ended the grand finals on Icebox. They simply domineered the first half as they took ten rounds and lost only two to XERXIA. In the second half, Paper Rex stumbled for quite a bit as they allowed XERXIA to take an additional three rounds from them but were ultimately merciless as they ended the series on Round 18.
The Best Team APAC Has To Offer
In a post-series interview, F0rsakeN revealed that he originally expected to face Team Secret in the grand finals.
“Honestly, [in] the beginning, I was expecting that we will meet Team Secret [in the grand finals],” the superstar duelist of Paper Rex confessed. He supplemented that with a claim that he saw Team Secret’s Agent composition identical to them but had a more annoying playstyle.
With that said, he then revealed that Paper Rex merely stuck to their guns for their run at the tournament and specifically pointed out that they anticipated the new meta with Fade.
“We tried to find the new meta,” F0rsakeN revealed.
Both Paper Rex and XERXIA have qualified for the Copenhagen Masters that is set to happen on July 10, 2022.
