Masters London Preview

The narrative here is simple: Paper Rex are the best team in the strongest region. Pacific sent the 1st and 2nd place finishers at Masters Santiago, solidifying themselves as the premier region in VCT. Then, not only did Paper Rex win Stage 1, they won the grand final 3–0 with map ban disadvantage.

Being the most dominant team in the strongest region is enough, but there are countless other metrics by which you could make an argument for Paper Rex.

• They had the highest Pyth% across all regions in Stage 1 (73.9%)
• They had the highest Win% across all regions in Stage 1 (74.1%)
• They have the highest BenPom rating across all regions right now (3.80)
• They are the most internationally successful + experienced core at Masters London

As much as he’s been their best player (or second best, if you’re partial to Jinggg), I’m worried Something could be the reason Paper Rex chokes again. Historically, Something is the player who falls short when it matters most for Paper Rex. Having someone like that be your best player can be dangerous. In fact, let’s look at a similar situation in the past with Paper Rex.

Before Champs 2025, Paper Rex were the consensus favorites to win the tournament, with Something being their best player and the second-highest-rated player in Pacific Stage 2. Ultimately, Paper Rex finished fourth. Something was the lowest-rated player once and second-lowest rated player twice in their final 3 matches.

At Masters London, Paper Rex are the consensus favorites with Something being their best player and the second-highest-rated player in Pacific Stage 1. I don’t like the direction this is going.

Even at the most recent Masters Santiago, Something was the lowest-rated player in the grand final, dropping an abysmal 0.65 rating. It’s worth noting that Paper Rex were actually favored pre-match.

Alongside the aforementioned trend about being a heavy favorite before an international, historical trends are not in Paper Rex’s favor.

Paper Rex have what I consider to be the best map of any team at Masters London with their Split. Since losing on Split to Nongshim RedForce at Masters Santiago, they’ve played Split 5 times in Stage 1 and won all 5 times, including against Nongshim. Their past 3 Split wins were 13–9 (T1), 13–1 (KRX), and 13–3 (GE). Jesus.

Furthermore, their BenPom map rating of 4.55 is one of the highest map ratings we’ve ever seen before an international (sample size ≥ 3), behind EG’s Fracture before Tokyo (5.42), G2’s Pearl heading into this same Masters London (5.06), 100 Thieves’ Bind before Shanghai (4.92), Nongshim’s Haven before Santiago (4.87), and some miscellaneous maps from 2023 FNATIC.

Personally, I think G2 are so so so… good. Not great, but good. In this way, I think they’re perfectly poised to win this tournament, conditional upon one or two teams faltering. I’ll explain.

No player on G2 is in insane form, unlike past times (Leaf before Bangkok, Trent before Toronto, Valyn before Champs Paris). Some people would say Trent is, but I disagree. No G2 player is consistently going into the server and dominating.

In G2’s past 3 matches, each one came down to the final map. They haven’t been as domestically dominant as previous iterations, and I think they’re quite honestly a tad overrated by BenPom.

How do they win, then? The one metric where they’ll win is experience. This core has been dominating domestically and playing well enough at internationals for years now. Meanwhile, London is filled with internationally inexperienced teams (e.g. Global Esports, FUT, LEV, etc.) and relatively new rosters (e.g. Vitality). In fact, other than NRG, PRX, and EDG, every other team at London has at least one player who’s never played at an international.

While the mid-tier teams may be flustered with the international experience and struggle to adapt to a post-Neon meta, G2’s core will be comfortable on the international stage and with shifting their team comps as they’ve done many times throughout the years.

G2 has two other reasons for optimism. Firstly, Babybay has hopefully gotten his “first international” jitters out of the way when he was the weak link at Santiago. Secondly, with the strength of their Pearl, they can pretty much guarantee a map as long as that gets through.

This isn’t the best G2 has looked coming into an international, but it’d be stupid to doubt them. They have a bye into playoffs, they’ll be calm when other teams would be nervous, and they’re fresh off of another Americas trophy. So, as much as they might not dominate, if PRX can choke at the end (which is, as I’ve mentioned, extremely possible) and NRG can continue to be unable to beat G2, I like G2’s chances.

For the same reason that they might win. They’re good, but not great. If G2 doesn’t win the last 3 rounds against Krü in Playoffs and they lose Lotus, they go on to Haven as map 3 — a map which they’ve lost the past two times they played it. They probably lose the match, go to Lowers, and maybe they wouldn’t even be at London altogether. The round differentials in their last three matches are +1, +4, and −10. Again, they’re not that convincing.

If one of PRX, NRG, or EDG can elevate their form, I don’t see G2 being able to beat them.

One of Babybay or Leaf needs to step up. Or both of them! Trent and Valyn have been carrying too much of the firepower recently. Babybay and Leaf have been playing high-fragging roles like Chamber and Phoenix, but they’ve been lackluster. Leaf, we know, has the potential to be a top-5 player in the world, but he’s been only decent in Stage 1 (1.01 rating). Keep in mind his most played agent has been Phoenix.

In Weeks 1 and 2, NRG lost to Furia and Krü with Keiko playing Killjoy and Omen through those 4 maps. Since then, Keiko hasn’t gone a match without playing duelist at least once and NRG has won those next 6 games until losing 2–3 to G2, a perfectly respectable loss. With Keiko on duelist, this team is ridiculously hot. So long as that continues, they can go as far as he takes them. It also helps that Brawk is looking like the best initiator in the world.

NRG has the experience and are a proven roster, something that will be valuable at Masters London just as I pointed out with G2. The individuals are in form, even to the point where Ethan dropped a match-high 1.31 rating in their EWC qualifier. If player form continues to be good and role issues are figured out (i.e. Keiko/Mada), NRG have enough momentum to go all the way to the grand final. Whether they can beat a top-level team with their new roster remains to be seen.

Transitioning from that previous section, it feels like this NRG team lacks a certain W streamer when it comes to these big matches against high-level opponents who put the onus on NRG to step up. NRG barely beat MIBR in Kickoff to qualify for Santiago after failing multiple times to qualify. At Santiago, when they reached top 3, their performance dropped drastically as they lost to NS and PRX (who they previously 2–0’d a week ago). Similarly, NRG barely squeaked by 100 Thieves for the last spot to qualify for London.

This new roster refuses to be irrelevant, but they fail to prove their relevancy when it matters most. Why should London be any different?

Keiko and Mada playing hot potato with their roles. In some matches, Keiko plays Jett and Mada plays Harbor. In some matches, Keiko plays Omen and Mada plays Neon. In fact, Keiko played THREE DIFFERENT ROLES alongside Mada’s Neon in their most recent Americas match. ONE match. What makes it even worse is that, during EWC qualifiers after Stage 1, Keiko was playing Vyse — yet another agent for his agent pool. I don’t understand what’s happening with Keiko’s role, and I honestly don’t know if Keiko knows himself.

I honestly believe that EDG have the strongest case for winning Masters London after Paper Rex, for very simple reasons:

• They’re the only one-seed to win their domestic title through the upper bracket.
• This EDG core is proven to be of international-winning caliber and has the experience to perform well at an international + in a new meta.
• Speaking of, ZmjjKK has already been playing a copious amount of Jett. Having the historically greatest Chinese Valorant player with his comfort agent coming back into the meta is a huge advantage. Neon did not treat EDG well (see Masters Santiago).
• Their domestic performance was dominant, only losing once to XLG who they proceeded to beat twice in playoffs.

3 of the players on EDG have the capability to be top 15 players in the world, and if they can prove that they’ve been doing more than just farming CN teams, this team meets every criteria to win Masters London.

CN, right now, looks the worst that it’s ever been. Somehow worse than 2023. At the previous international, both group stage Chinese teams went out 0–2. In playoffs, AG went out 1–2. The entire Chinese region won 1 match and suffered 6 losses. I can’t emphasize enough how the issue of EDG is simply their region. They truly meet every criteria, but how can you have faith in a team that’s playing in a region whose best teams wouldn’t win a T2 Pacific tournament? You can’t. It just won’t be surprising if EDG are the real deal.

Amidst all of the discussion of ZmjjKK’s return, I think it’s important to remember that CHICHOO is (I believe) better than KK, and has been for the past two years. The last time EDG looked legit (Masters Bangkok), CHICHOO was making everyone else look silly. For instance, in the last match that EDG won in Bangkok, look at the performance CHICHOO put up in a do-or-die Map 3 victory:

CHICHOO · EDG

Masters Bangkok 2025, UB Semifinals vs T1 — Map 3 (Pearl)

R2.0

1.85

ACS

357

K / D / A

32/16/10

KAST

88%

ADR

221

FK / FD

2 / 0

CHICHOO ended up as the highest-rated player at Masters Bangkok.

Smoggy is also seemingly entering his prime based on stats alone. I haven’t watched much CN Valorant, but I know this team is filled with more talent than just ZmjjKK.

They’re a 1-seed who beat a team with Chronicle, Derke, and Sayonara in the EMEA grand final while having map-ban disadvantage. That alone qualifies them to be contenders.

Outside of that, I would highlight their ability to midround. In watching some Heretics matches, the calling of every player on TH has been so beautiful during the mid-round fights and pauses. Whether or not they have a man advantage, they figure out the correct percentage play. For instance, watch this clip of perfect calling from benjyfishy and RieNs:

Benjy’s orchestration of caging and playing counterflash, calling RieNs to hold A link, calling the peek off of the ult, and then RieNs taking over the calling for the 2v1 is amazing.

This is much easier to argue. Firstly, Neon getting nerfed affects this team more than, or as much as, any other team. I am not joking when I say that Heretics have not played a single map in Stage 1 without Neon in their comp.

Secondly, they shouldn’t have even qualified to London. What if RieNs doesn’t win the 1v2 vs. Fnatic on Ascent? Heretics lose and go out 1–2 in playoffs. What if one of the two close 13–10 map wins against Eternal Fire turns into a loss? They lose that Bo3 and don’t qualify to London. Even in the EMEA Stage 1 grand finals, they lost more rounds than they won overall.

Heretics are extremely lucky to be a 1-seed let alone qualified. More so, all of this mediocrity and luckiness is occurring in the second-worst region currently. That doesn’t count for much. Combine the Neon nerfs, and you have one of the worst non-CN one seeds I’ve ever seen in VCT.

What will Koshmaras play? The last time he played someone other than Neon, it was Raze, and that was over two months ago. It wouldn’t surprise me if Team Heretics stuck to their guns with Neon despite the nerfs. At some point, it’s less of a question of what you should play and what you can play.

Their argument is as follows:

• They have the best player in the tournament in Primmie. Switching from a Neon meta to a Jett meta rewards star players with great aim, reducing chaos and prioritizing aim duels.
• For all of the talk about how great the Pacific region is currently, it’s important to remember that — up until the Playoffs Grand Final — Full Sense looked like they might be the best APAC team. In Playoffs, they beat DRX (#12 in the world) 2–0, T1 (#3 in the world) 2–0, and GE (#13 in the world) 2–0, not dropping a single map until the Grand Final.

They’re an easy team to counter-strat. Just as much as Primmie is the reason for this team’s success, his level of importance can be a reason for concern. For instance, in the two matches prior to the Pacific Grand Final (when they were on a tear), Primmie took 41% of his team’s first interactions against GE and 46.5% against T1. These numbers are insanely high. Then, in the Grand Final, PRX intentionally avoided him unless there were team fights. There, Primmie only took 31% of his team’s first interactions as Full Sense lost 3–0. Importantly, Primmie was still winning his first interactions at a good rate (12/9 in FK/FD), but Paper Rex avoided giving him a high volume of these first duels.

This strategy has proven consistent.

Just watch Primmie. This team is much more than Primmie (I specifically rate Killua’s aim and CRWS’s IGLing highly), but Primmie is, at the end of the day, this team’s human highlight reel.

Leviatán are one of the more interesting cases. If you want to believe they can win, the only thing you should look at is their recent match results in Stage 1 Playoffs. They were up 10–8 in map 5 against G2 in the Americas Grand Final. If they closed that map out, they’d come into London as the 1-seed from the second-best region after having beaten G2 twice in a row. However, they didn’t close out that map, and that’s important to acknowledge. The point here is that, whether it be because of inexperience, nerves, or a shallow map pool, Leviatán were just barely unable to come into London with such a resume. The good news is how close they were. If they can shore up whatever shortcomings they suffered from, they can be right there with the best teams at London. They’ve demonstrated that potential.

Leviatán, other than that Grand Final, went unbeaten in Stage 1’s Playoffs after stumbling at the end of Group Stage. Granted these matches were close, but they’ve shown that they can lock in for high-stakes scenarios. Also, since Ascent was added to the map pool, they haven’t lost it once.

Stage 1 Playoffs, from a macro perspective, offers reason for optimism in Leviatán.

However, the more you look into the micro, the more Leviatán’s case falls apart. Just like Team Heretics, Leviatán has played Neon in every single map of Stage 1. Spikezin has, quite literally, not played a different agent since he played Viper in February (where he dropped a 0.63 rating). Adding Neon (the player) helped Leviatán a lot, but adding Neon (the agent) also helped them immensely. Leviatán will either look worse because the agent their comps are centered around is worse, or they’ll look worse because they’re switching to new comps.

Furthermore, Leviatán is heavily centered around set plays. Why do you think G2 was able to beat them in a Bo5 (with map-ban disadvantage) after losing 2–1 in their previous meeting? Because they’re easy to counter-strat and adapt to.

The more you dissect Leviatán, the worse they look. It doesn’t help that they went 0–5 in maps for EWC qualifiers after Stage 1 Playoffs.

If Spikezin falls back to other roles, Sato will likely have to shoulder even more responsibility on the duelist role. Spikezin has often been the player to initiate site hits and first contacts, while Sato and Neon come in after him. With Spikezin potentially being on Deadlock or Viper, Sato will be the key to any success Leviatán has at London. Sato has been touted as a rising star for about a year now, and this would be his opportunity to prove it, with London being his first international and a potentially increased burden on duelist.

Of all that there is to say about Global Esports, the most convincing argument is that they managed to beat Paper Rex 2–1 in Pacific Playoffs, which is about the best win you could tally before Masters London. Though they lost to Paper Rex 0–3 in their later rematch, that’s partially driven by the fact that GE (in my opinion) messed up the pick/ban. They didn’t pick Breeze when it was offered to them despite beating Paper Rex on Breeze the last time they played and being unbeaten on Breeze in Stage 1 at the time. Also, they’re an APAC team in 2026, so they’re automatically afforded some level of legitimacy.

If they can beat the best team at Masters London, surely they can win the event? Right?

Ever since beating Team Secret at the beginning of Stage 1, every match since then has been:

• A loss (4)
• A 2–1 win (2)
• A 2–0 win with a round differential of 5 or less (1)

The fact that they managed to get here involves luck heavily. Their wins are (clearly) not convincing.

Though they beat Paper Rex, they were only able to do so because PatMen could immediately read his former team.

The last time Autumn was at an international was at Champions Seoul, where he was FPX’s best player. I’d like to see if he can step up again for GE.

Between their player quality (i.e. Happywei and Rarga) and their domestic results (e.g. losing 3–2 in the CN final against EDG), this team is firmly the second-best team in China. If EDG show up despite China’s previous performance at Santiago, there are no excuses for XLG not to, at least, qualify for playoffs. As I said previously, I firmly believe EDG have a high chance of winning this tournament, so XLG should follow closely behind them.

However, if China does make a resurgence, historical precedent will not be XLG’s friend. At Masters Santiago they went out 0–2. At Champions Paris, they went out 1–2. At Masters Toronto they went out 0–2. Despite EDG and XLG’s (relatively) close matches, the difference in ranking is based on how they historically perform at internationals. It will be hard for China’s current status and XLG’s historical record at internationals to both flip on their heads. It will be hard for XLG to win.

Both Rarga and Happywei are capable of putting up a memorable performance at Masters London. By pure firepower, there aren’t many that come close to them in VCT CN. Hopefully, one of them does it.

Names. If you were to ask 1,000 VCT fans which 5 players they’d want on their team for an international run, Chronicle and Derke would come up for probably 200–300 times. Granted, these 200–300 fans would be wrong, but the point is that these players exist in a level of mythology where it’s hard not to believe that they have some real chance of winning.

The last time Derke was at an international, he was the best player on Vitality and the fourth-highest rated player at Bangkok. The event before that, Derke was the best player on Fnatic and the second-highest rated player at Champions Seoul.

Chronicle has three trophies.

On top of all of this, Sayonara looks like the best player on Vitality.

You can have your reservations about Jamppi and PROFEK (though I think Jamppi has been playing and calling very well), but this roster seems like an international-winning roster.

Don’t look at the roster and look at their results. In Group Stage, they went 2–3 (only beating PCIFIC and GX). In Playoffs, when every match was do-or-die, they barely won against Liquid, beat Fnatic with a sub, and then SHOULD’VE lost to FUT (they lost more rounds than they won in the 2–1 win, which is hard to do). After all of this, they lost to Heretics despite their pick/ban advantage.

This team gets criminally overrated because of the players. Based on results, they shouldn’t be at this tournament, let alone in discussions of winning London.

Derke vocally hates playing Neon.

If you want to see a happy camper, watch Derke at this event. Maybe this is another reason for optimism in Vitality.

They have TMV on their side, who (based on Wolves) should guarantee them a top-3 finish. This is genuinely the only argument I can think of.

They’ve lost 3 of their past 4 matches, they come from the second-worst region, their best map in Stage 1 (Bind) isn’t in the map pool anymore, and their best player (s0pp) has only played Neon in Stage 1, who’s getting nerfed into the ground. Again, this team is hard to be optimistic about.

TMV’s costreams. That’s about the best FUT can bring to Masters London.

vo0kashu.

The players on DRG not named vo0kashu.

You won’t believe this… vo0kashu.