Valorant Champions Shanghai 2026 got off to a thrilling start as Paper Rex defeated Team Liquid 2-1 in a tightly contested series to start the competition.
Grouped with G2 and TYLOO, both teams wished to avoid an opening defeat that would put their place in the competition at risk in the following match.
How Paper Rex took down Liquid at Valorant Champions Shanghai
Even though Paper Rex have not exactly had the year many envisaged for the roster, the Pacific team still went into the Champions opener with the bulk of the expectation on them.
That faith seemed well placed in the early part of the contest, as Paper Rex dismantled Liquid on Ascent. The Paper Rex map pick initially looked like it could swing the EMEA roster’s way, as they fought from a 0-4 deficit to equalise the scoreline, but that hope soon faded.
Paper Rex created another run of four rounds in a row to close out the half, 8-4, behind strong impact from Paper Rex’s depth of stars.
Moving on to the defensive side, a pistol victory and a bonus round win effectively sealed the contest, as Liquid had no answers to Paper Rex’s defense, with the Pacific roster sealing a 13-4 victory.
However, Paper Rex’s shine was soon taken off of them in a messy Haven contest that saw Paper Rex’s stars struggle. Only Ilya ‘something’ Petrov kept Paper Rex in the contest.
Liquid’s superiority on the map truly showed on their attacking side, where they expertly manipulated a disjointed PRX to create and exploit advantage after advantage, securing a 6-2 Attack scoreline to convert the map 13-7.
The third map of Lotus started with utter domination from the Paper Rex defence on the favored side of the map, and with a 9-2 half, the Pacific roster seemed to be breezing to a victory.
However, Team Liquid remained confident that they could claw it back on Defence, and they came agonizingly close to doing so. The EMEA roster seemed to have it in their hands despite still trailing at 8-10, but a quick double
from Wang ‘Jinggg’ Jing Jie completely flipped the script, leaving Liquid desperate to recover their man disadvantage, making pushes which Paper Rex promptly punished.
That lightning-fast round finally gave Paper Rex a platform to get those final few rounds, winning the following round from a 4v5 situation.
An outrageous Khalish ‘d4v41’ Rusyaidee ace converted map point on the third time of asking to win Paper Rex Lotus 13-10 and the series 2-1.
Can Paper Rex win the whole competition? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
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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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