Paper Rex Qualify For The VCT Kickoff Playoffs Stage

The best team in the Asia Pacific region, Paper Rex, played their first official match in 2024. They won the series against Gen.G to book a spot in the Playoffs Semi Final.

With the new and experimental format of the VCT Kickoff tournaments, one group, Group C, only featured three teams as opposed to the four in Groups A and B. Since Paper Rex had the highest seeding in the league, they received a free ticket to the qualification match.

Gen.G Esports and Rex Regum Qeon had the unfortunate pleasure of being stuck in a group with the region’s best team. The Korean squad of Gen.G defeated RRQ to reach the Winner’s match, where they would face Paper Rex to reach the tournament’s Semi Final directly.

Though it is old news, Paper Rex player Wang “Jinggg” Jing Jie will finally be absent from the squad since he will be serving in the Singaporean Military soon. Jinggg is cheering his teammates on from home. This meant Cahya “Monyet” Nugraha was finally a “permanent” replacement for Jinggg and will be a starter in the roster.

HI WATCH PARTY WITH FACE CAM CHEER FOR PRX HIHIHIhttps://t.co/AueEUWIoRz

— PRX Jinggg (@Jingggxd) February 19, 2024

In the first map of the series, Gen. G’s pick of Breeze, Paper Rex seemed very rusty, with many of their players missing their shots. The game remained close thanks to a standout performance from Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee, who essentially kept the team in the game. However, Paper Rex dropped the first map 10-13 after a poor defensive showing.

After getting some much-needed warmup from the first map, the boys in Paper Rex were locked in and ready to go. Fans got to see Ilya “something” Petrov on his famous Jett perform to expectations. Though it still wasn’t the cleanest map, the Singapore-based team could take their map pick 13-10 to send the series to a third game. 

Sunset would be the battleground for the third map. Finally, the real Paper Rex everyone was waiting for showed up. The entire team played exceptionally well to stomp 10-2 on their defense in the first half. Though it took a stretch to end the game, Paper Rex got the job done, winning the map 13-7 and completing the reverse sweep.

GGs 2-1 GenG , thank you for today support everyone and see you later in Playoffs!!! ♥️🔥

— PRX f0rsakeN (@jasonsusantoo) February 19, 2024

With this victory, Paper Rex skipped the Play-ins stage and directly made it to the Semi Final, where they would play against the first seed of Group B. All they need to do to qualify for VCT Masters Madrid is win their Semi Final match, as the top-two finishers will both receive invitations.  

Header: Paper Rex