Paper Rex and DRX survive another day at VALORANT Champions 2025

It was an excellent day for Pacific fans as both Paper Rex and DRX won crucial elimination matches in the VALORANT Champions 2025 Playoffs.

As a result, the organisations’ lower-bracket rivals, Team Heretics and MIBR, have been eliminated from the tournament.

VCT EMEA’s Team Heretics made a valiant final stand at VALORANT Champions 2025, but ultimately suffered a 1-2 defeat against Pacific’s Stage 2 champion Paper Rex (PRX).

The series began with a clash between Heretic’s double-duelist team composition and PRX’s Sage/Vyse comp on Ascent. Due to overinvesting in the second round, PRX suffered a bonus round conversion and a subsequent snowball at the hands of Heretics. The team only recovered slightly by frequently changing up its defensive Vyse setups and having hard-hitting site anchors, but ultimately fell behind 4-8.

Interestingly, it was the attack side where PRX’s double-sentinel comp looked the most impressive. Off the back of its first pistol round win, the Pacific squad delivered a mid-round calling masterclass. Whenever its game plans turned scrappy, PRX would come out on top of chaotic team fights to secure a victory on the opponent’s map pick 13-11.

PRX’s Khalish ‘d4v41’ Rusyaidee contributed significantly to his team’s success, making convincing on-the-fly calls and winning clutch aim duels.

On Haven, it was PRX’s turn to convert its defence pistol and bonus round. The resulting economic boost allowed Ilia ‘something’ Petrov to purchase a deadly Operator. Other PRX members also fragged out whenever necessary. Still, Heretics won two thrifties and several B-hits fuelled by strong ultimates for a solid 5-7 attack half.

After winning the second pistol, Heretics found itself repeatedly overwhelmed by the opponent’s explosive site bursts. But another crucial thrifty win swung the momentum in Heretics’ favour. Once stabilised, the Spanish team looked much more methodical than PRX, which was starved for map control. Round by round, Heretics fought back to even out the match score (13-9).

The final showdown took place on Lotus, where PRX had lost twelve consecutive attack rounds in the upper bracket series against Fnatic. As PRX launched its attack today, it initially seemed that history might repeat itself. However, after an early timeout, the Pacific team recovered from its initial indecisiveness to roll over the defenders.

Heretics also tried to bounce back with a timeout, but couldn’t stop d4v4i’s massive impact in every round. To make matters worse, Heretics looked ill-prepared for PRX’s signature early aggression on its defence. By securing its own twelve-round win streak, PRX won the series (13-4).

The second elimination series of the day was between two dark horses, Pacific’s DRX and Americas team MIBR. Despite a slow start for the Pacific squad, DRX ultimately survived 2-1.

As DRX first banned Corrode, MIBR was free to pick its opponent’s previous perma-ban, Sunset. However, this move appeared to be a trap at first. DRX looked astonishingly well-coordinated on Sunset’s defence and shut down the majority of MIBR’s A/B hits. Even MIBR’s macro game play adjustments weren’t enough while DRX’s No ‘freeing’ Ha-junand and Cho ‘Flashback’ Min-hyuk shredded through their enemies. DRX won nine rounds on the defence, including the pistol.

With the 9-3 curse activated, MIBR had its own near-flawless defence. DRX looked disjointed on its one-dimensional set strategies while Erick ‘aspas’ Santos wielded a deadly Operator. Similar to its rival, DRX didn’t play into the strength of its Neon, who excels at taking swift mid-control. The Pacific team only won a single round on its attack, conceding Sunset 10-13.

Aspas continued to deliver deadly shots on Ascent’s defence whenever he could afford a sniper rifle. Additionally, MIBR’s Vyse maintained passive mid-control, allowing players to stack the sites. Despite such efforts, MIBR couldn’t prevent many of DRX’s A executes. Following a thrifty swing round, the Korean squad efficiently cycled through its ultimates to claim seven attack rounds.

On defence, DRX withheld information from MIBR as the team couldn’t fine-tune its attack scaling. It took a quadruple kill from aspas to extend the game into overtime. Ultimately, DRX persevered through hero plays and two pistol round wins from MIBR to survive in the series (15-13).

Unlike MIBR, DRX managed to convert its double pistol win into a victory on the final map, Bind. The first half of the map was a game of hide and seek once DRX’s Flashback purchased a defence Operator. While the Yoru player loved holding deep map space for his team, MIBR tried to punish DRX on its reactive pushes on the extremities. 

After an even 6-6 half, DRX took firm control of the game. The Korean roster capitalised on the free space given in A-showers to start a snowball. Moreover, in-game leader (IGL) Kim ‘MaKo’ Myeong-kwan played confidently during post-plant situations. A hero play from aspas and some misused ultimates from DRX could only delay the inevitable (13-10).

With Team Heretics and MIBR eliminated, only DRX and Paper Rex remain in the Playoffs lower-bracket for now. These two teams will fight for survival in the Lower Bracket Semifinal next Friday, October 3rd.

However, the action on Friday kicks off at 12 PM BST with the Upper Bracket Final between EMEA’s Fnatic and Americas team NRG. The winner of this series will advance to the Grand Final on October 5th. The loser, on the other hand, must persevere in October 4th’s Lower Bracket Final.

All final Playoffs matches at VALORANT Champions 2025 will be broadcast via VCT’s official YouTube and Twitch channels.