Valorant Champions 2026 saw its first playoff contests as NRG took on T1 and Paper Rex played LOUD in Shanghai.
NRG expectedly progressed past T1 before LOUD completed a famous victory over Paper Rex to leave both VCT Pacific rosters in the lower bracket.
NRG delivers a Summit masterclass to progress at Valorant Champions
Valorant Champions Paris 2025 winners NRG showed why experience pays against T1 as the American roster overcame T1 in the first match of the Shanghai Playoffs.
The series began on Lotus, T1’s pick, and their confidence on the map seemed well-placed as their Attack side got off to an imperious start on the map. T1 led 7-3 after 10 rounds, planting the bomb in all three of their round losses, indicating their ability to freely enter bomb sites.
However, NRG checked that momentum at the end of the half. As they so often do, they found a window to get back into the game by making it a 7-5 half, but T1 returned the favor, winning three of their first four defensive rounds to take control at 10-6.
That marked the end of T1’s ascendancy on the map, as NRG took control on their own Attack side behind strong calling from Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold and spellbinding fragging from Georgio ‘keiko’ Sanassy and Adam ‘mada’ Pampuch.
NRG would only lose one more round on the Attack side as they turned the game just in time to deliver a win in regulation and take Lotus 13-11.
Summit was a far simpler story, overall. NRG had won the map all five times of asking before the contest, and looked confident and assured despite losing five rounds on defense to the fragging of Kim ‘Meteor’ Tae-oh and Yu ‘Buzz’ Byeong-cheol.
T1 managed to tie the game up by winning the second pistol round and converting it, but that was when NRG showed why they are arguably the best team in the world on the map.
The Americas team recorded six unbroken rounds in a row to convert the map 13-7 and make the Upper Bracket Semis of Champions Shanghai.
LOUD shock Paper Rex at Valorant Champions
With NRG through, minds were already on the possibility of an NRG vs Paper Rex upper semi-final, but LOUD showed that they were not to be taken lightly.
Paper Rex chose to start the match on Split, theoretically a good pick against LOUD, and an 8-4 Attack side seemed to reinforce that. However, the hard-shooting South American roster was not to be rolled over easily; in fact, they were the ones rolling once they could show their explosive playstyle on the Attack side.
Lucca ‘lukxo’ Travaioli’s Yoru dismantled Paper Rex’s defences, enabled by excellent supportive play from Roberto ‘erde’ Lobos.
LOUD were completely uncontainable as Paper Rex again and again were blown away by LOUD’s firepower and clutching ability.
The South American team dropped only a single Attacking round, winning Split 13-9 and riding high on momentum as they moved on to their map pick of Sunset. Sunset would go on to be a classic.
Paper Rex again started the stronger, shutting down attack after attack to lead 9-3 on the half behind a big half from Jason ‘f0rsakeN’ Susanto.
The Pacific roster were well on their way to taking LOUD’s map pick, but a mixture of Paper Rex errors and LOUD’s proactive defence allowed LOUD to equalize the scoreline. LOUD won clutch after clutch against a frustrated-looking PRX, but Paper Rex gained their composure to win three rounds to gain map point.
Paper Rex again played clumsy and ill-considered Valorant to give away that opportunity, and it would be their last chance to win a map in the series.
LOUD took control of Overtime, with Paper Rex only saved by a 1v2 clutch by Ilya ‘something’ Petrov in the first overtime, but it quickly fell apart for Paper Rex again as LOUD converted the map 15-13 and progress to the Upper Semis against NRG.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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