VALORANT Champions 2025 Group A preview: An easy ride for Paper Rex?

VALORANT Champions 2025 will kick off next week, featuring 16 of the game’s best teams from across the globe and a whopping $2.25m (~£1.66m) prize pool.

For the tournament’s first phase, contestants have been divided into four double-elimination (GSL) groups. However, only the top two teams from each group will advance to the Playoffs and continue to fight for the 2025 Champs title.

As VALORANT’s largest international tournament of the year approaches, Esports Insider takes an in-depth look at the VALORANT Champions 2025 Group Stage, starting with Group A: Paper Rex, GIANTX, Sentinels and XLG Esports.

VALORANT Champions 2025’s Group A has a relatively large skill level disparity between seed one and the remaining teams. This is due to VCT Pacific’s first seed, Paper Rex (PRX) — a team which most contestants would rather not face in the Group Stage.

To put it bluntly, meeting PRX in the early stage of the tournament is one step closer to a potential elimination. Not only did the Southeast Asian organisation win Masters Toronto in June to score its first international trophy, PRX also emerged nearly undefeated in VCT Pacific Stage 2, only losing one series during the Group Stage.

As a roster that has remained mostly unchanged, Paper Rex’s aggressive playstyle has been fine-tuned coming into the event. PRX’s regional and global dominance this year has been dubbed the ‘PRX train’ by members of the VALORANT esports community, with it not looking likely to stop anytime soon. 

The PRX train combines the team’s aggression with a newfound patience and improved macro gameplay. While every member on this roster has proven their ability to step up and take the spotlight, PRX’s duelist player Ilia ‘something’ Petrov has stood out for his Yoru and has even been called the best VALORANT player in the world right now by analyst Thinking Man’s VALORANT.

Given the community’s immense expectations for this team, PRX is the clear favourite to top VALORANT Champions Group A. The train should roll over its first obstacle, with its opening match against XLG Esports on September 12th; however, with VALORANT, nothing is guaranteed.

On the other hand, Group A’s second participant, GIANTX, does not paint as clear a picture heading into the competition.

Following underwhelming performances during VCT EMEA Kickoff and Stage 1, the region’s second seed qualified for Champions through its Stage 2 placement alone.

Despite these inconsistencies, GIANTX has established itself as the dark horse of the region, converting an unlikely Stage 2 run into an underdog success story. During the EMEA tournament, the team had to navigate through a deadly Group Stage against star rosters such as Team Vitality and Team Heretics. 

In that sense, GIANTX is not new to fighting in tough Group Stage match-ups and might have gained some valuable experience ahead of VALORANT Champions 2025.

Ultimately, it was in the Playoffs where GIANTX shocked EMEA fans with consecutive lower bracket victories over Fnatic (2-0), NAVI (2-1) and BBL Esports (3-0). Although Team Liquid eventually toppled the squad in the Grand Final (0-3), the team’s valiant lower bracket run showcased the roster’s true potential.

GIANTX’s first match in Paris will be on September 12th versus Sentinels. Its members will be coming into the competition refreshed following its lower-bracket run, making a win over the VCT Americas representative possible.

Moreover, the roster’s rookies, Karel ‘Flickless’ Maeckelbergh and Eduard-George ‘ara’ Hanceriuc, hit hard and will be hungry to prove themselves on their first international stage.

Whilst GIANTX only just made it through to VALORANT Champions, the team could ruin some Pick ‘Ems by continuing its dark horse storyline and advancing to the Playoffs

To say that Sentinels is in danger of falling behind early in Group A is an understatement. Usually considered among the most consistent teams within VCT Americas, its Stage 2 performance has left many fans concerned about the organisation’s competitiveness.

Sentinels started strong with a flawless Group Stage despite being paired with G2 Esports and Cloud9. However, this early success fell apart as the team failed to repeat its win against G2 in the Upper Bracket Final (0-2). Fuelled by the return of star sentinel player Nathan ‘leaf’ Orf, G2 tore through a disjointed-looking Sentinels. 

To make matters worse, the roster failed to recover from this setback and suffered another loss in the Lower Bracket Final against NRG (1-3). What made this series arguably more demoralising than the G2 encounter was the way in which NRG defeated Sentinels on one of its historically best maps, Lotus.

Picked as the first map by Sentinels, Lotus saw NRG seemingly lock down every angle and every one of its opponent’s plays with precisely executed Odin sprays through walls, doors, boxes and more.

Heading into Group A as VCT Americas’ third seed, Sentinels will need to mend its crushed mentality if the team is to stand a chance in the Group Stage. But if the team’s heavy fraggers, Zachary ‘zekken’ Patrone and Marshall ‘N4RRATE’ Massey, regain their full potential, Sentinels could be primed for a deep Champions run.

The final team of Group A is XLG Esports, representing VCT China as one of its Ascension teams. This is an important detail as it raises the stakes for XLG at VALORANT Champions this year. 

With both Chinese Ascension teams (XLG and Dragon Ranger Gaming) qualifying for Champs, the organisations are indirectly competing against each other to secure a guaranteed VCT slot for the 2026 season.

Despite becoming the unexpected VCT China Stage 1 champions, XLG only finished fourth during Stage 2. While the squad led Group Omega in the Group Stage, it was swiftly sent to the lower playoffs bracket by its fellow Ascension team (1-2). After a shaky victory over All Gamers (2-1), XLG then fell to a reinvigorated EDward Gaming (0-2). 

Heading into Champs as the fourth seed of Group A and facing PRX in the opening series might sound daunting for XLG fans. On the flipside, this group offers the Chinese organisation a relatively high chance to upset GIANTX or Sentinels during its second match.

XLG has already come back from a disappointing showing on its first global stage at Masters Toronto, proving its perseverance. Moreover, with James ‘NoMan’ Man, the roster has found a worthy — albeit still inconsistent — replacement for its former initiator Yip ‘YoU’ Man-ho.

As GIANTX and Sentinels wrestle to survive the Group Stage, XLG might just steal Group A’s second playoffs slot.

VALORANT Champions Paris 2025 is set to commence on September 12th and will be broadcast on VCT’s official Twitch and YouTube channels.