Paper Rex take down Team Heretics to win VCT 2022 OFF SEASON - VALORANT India Invitational

All the fans had a chance to see Team Heretics, Paper Rex, Team Secret, and Rex Regum Qeon perform before the Kickoff Tournament in Sao Paulo. Out of four partnership teams, Team Heretics and Paper Rex reached the grand final stage and the Singaporean team lifted the VCT 2022 OFF SEASON - Valorant India Invitational trophy after four maps, 3-1.

VCT 2022 OFF SEASON - VALORANT India Invitational welcomed eight teams. Five of them, Team Heretics, Paper Rex, Team Secret, Rex Regum Qeon, and BOOM Esports got direct invitations to the tournament. Other organizations, Enigma Gaming, GodSquad, and Bleed Esports competed after winning the Indian and SEA Qualifiers. As expected, the grand final hosted the competition between Team Heretics and Paper Rex.

Team Secret, Team Heretics, Rex Regum Qeon, and Enigma Gaming were the Group A participants. Enigma failed to win a single game but others grabbed two wins and one loss and in the finale, Team Secret and Heretics made it to the group stage. Bleed eSports and Paper Rex topped GodSquad and BOOM Esports in Group B and qualified for the playoffs.

Team Heretics took down Bleed eSports without losing a single map, 2-0, and became the first finalists of the tournament. The French star of the team, Wassim "keloqz" Cista had a slow start to the tournament and failed to provide firepower to his team during the group stage. He had his blast against Bleed and picked up 28 kills on Icebox with Chamber, securing 8 first bloods. m1xwell followed him with 24 kills and the duo carried their team to victory. Bleed eSports did everything they could in the first map but lost the game in overtime. The second map was Bind and Aleksander "zeek" Zygmunt picked Raze, joining m1xwell and keloqz on the scoreboard to finish the series earlier than expected, 13-8.

Paper Rex and Team Secret showed a preview of the VCT 2023 Pacific League as both teams will compete against each other in the upcoming season. Jason "f0rsakeN" Susanto played out of his mind with 28 kills on Phoenix to win the first map. Team Secret evened the series but Paper Rex’s Ascent performance was so on point that TS only won six rounds. Paper Rex won the series and reached the grand finals to play against Heretics. f0rsaken completed the series with a 1.44 rating and 61 kills on Phoenix, KAY/O, and Chamber.

The Grand Final matchup was expected to go much closer than what happened in reality. Paper Rex closed out the series in four maps, 3-1. Team Heretics made a good start despite losing the first map, they evened the scoreboard after a very strong 13-6 win on Fracture. However, Paper Rex took control on Breeze and Ascent to conclude the tournament and take home the winning prize, $50,000.

As teams are recently formed and still need time to build chemistry, some players also need to adapt individually to find their rhythms. Paper Rex’s f0rsaken continues to fascinate everybody with his individual performance while it looks like keloqz still needs some time to adapt to his new teammates, even though he had played with m1xwell and AvovA before. We might see these teams compete at the Kickoff Tournament and the result might be different as players will have more time to build chemistry and adapt to each other. Considering other teams’ levels and performances, Paper Rex and Team Heretics both had tough opponents and showed they will cause trouble with their performances to other teams in the upcoming season.