The upper bracket finals match of Valorant Champions 2023 between Paper Rex and Evil Geniuses came a complete surprise, with the former prevailing with their signature reckless style. After failing to capitalize on their advantage, EG, who had previously galvanized the community with their trash talk routine, was humbled in front of their fans at the Kia Forum Arena in Los Angeles and dropped to the final lower bracket.
EG, who boasted the best young NA team, made it to Champions 2023 and cruised through the playoffs, trash-talking and teabagging their opponents. And this mentality has clearly cast them as the villains in the professional scene, particularly their ace Max “Demon1” Mazanov, who claims affection for it while destroying their opponents.
Despite the fact that they were able to pull it off and get away with it, they have finally tasted their own medicine, as Paper Rex was waiting for this exact moment to return the favor, with Jason “Forsaken” Susanto previously stated that he intended to shut down the North American giant for being arrogant. And, despite all odds, the Singapore guys delivered.
In the best of three match that took place this morning, the two of them displayed a high level of play and succeeded in capturing the attention of the stadium audience through tense moments. Despite putting up an impressive fight and nearly winning the last map, Paper Rex managed to turn things around and win the game with a final score of 2-1.
The intensity of the competition, however, led to several Paper Rex players engaging in behavior that could be seen as provocative during the game 2 which took place in Bind, which involved shooting the dead bodies of opponents, engaging in trash talk across the stage, and waving to them on stage. Riot Games took note of this behavior and decided to warn the team.
In the post-match interview session, Ilya “something” Petrov and Forsaken responded to the question regarding the teabagging moment as a joke. Forsaken then admitted that they got a warning for doing it against their opponents.
Paper Rex’s head coach Alexander “alecks” Sallé then chimed in to give his thought about his team action, “honestly, I don’t really like it when they teabag, because they get carried away, and I usually tell them off in practice if they start doing this. But I guess because EG doesn’t mind, why not?”
Although the team admitted their error, most of the competition’s audience defended them and accused the officials of turning a blind eye to the home team, which is well known for its rude behavior both on and off the stage.
Apart from their shenanigans, this is definitely historic moment for Southeast Asia, which has finally saw its first representative in the grand finals of Valorant Champions. The W gamers are now just a step away from making a new high.
