DRX DRX Korea Rank #7 Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Athan Na Ha-jun (나하준) freeing No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) come back from being down 10-1 on Lotus to defeating Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #2 B3ar Yang Zhanxiong (杨瞻雄) whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) 2-0 and moving on to the Valorant Champions 2023 upper semifinals.

This victory marks the first time since May that DRX has won three series in a row. It also secures a top-six finish at an international event for the fifth time in the org's history. They will now face either EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) or Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #20 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le to determine who guarantees a top-four placement and who descends to the lower bracket to join Bilibili.

Initially, Bilibili took a resounding lead on Lotus, ending the defense with a dominant 10-2. rin and whzy played spectacularly, with a 1.47 and 1.87 rating, respectively, and an ace a piece as the cherry on top.

Unfortunately for them, that would be the last time in the series they would be in the lead. DRX managed to string together 11 rounds in a row, sweeping the second half and winning their opponents' map pick 13-10. BuZz , MaKo , and Rb all had a 100% KAST following half-time, while stax secured a crucial clutch to continue their dominance.

stax finds a clutch to secure the round

On their map pick, Haven, DRX debuted a composition tailor-made for Zest 's revitalized Viper. Alongside BuZz, they dominated the opening engagements on the attack, finding three first kills each. The second half was more of the same, as the double-controller proved to be too oppressive for Bilibili's site hits, who only planted four times. “[Viper] is extremely strong in holding sites on defense,” Zest said in the post-match press conference. “We rate her as a really good agent, as a team”.

Zest triple kill

After the match, BuZz defended their decision in keeping Zest in the lineup instead of Foxy9 .

“We are very confident with Zest”, BuZz said. “Zest has great second calling and still has great gamesense.”

Some fans and analysts feared DRX had lost its form after failing to take the VCT Pacific title and being knocked out of the Masters Tokyo playoffs in two consecutive matches, disappointments for a team that is already known for falling short of expectations at international tournaments.

“After we failed to win Pacific we lost our mentality,” BuZz said. “This Champions we found it again. We have a winning mentality.”