With Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 PatMen Patrick Mendoza Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov and NRG NRG North America Rank #1 s0m Sam Oh brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold safely through to the playoffs, the time came for Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #2 MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius and T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) DH Kang Dong-ho (강동호) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) to try their luck at qualification.

The expectations were the highest for the Korean squad, who won Masters Bangkok earlier this year. Team Heretics, conversely, have been short for luck. The EMEA squad were consistently the world's #2 last year and at Toronto — the only VCT international they attended this year barring Champions — dropped out of the group stage winless.

Team Heretics hope today's win over T1 sets them on course for, at long last, a title. They stopped a comeback dead in its tracks on Lotus to clinch the map 13-10, and fought off an overtime challenge from T1 to take Sunset 13-11 and, with it, the match and playoffs spot.

Team Heretics huddle (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Team Heretics' 2024 is the embodiment of “always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” In the three regional EMEA competitions, Heretics finished in second place twice — once to Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #10 saadhak Matias Delipetro Avez Hazem Khaled SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin marteen Martin Pátek and once to FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder — and once in third — when they lost to Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #25 Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner UNFAKE Bartosz Bernacki KovaQ Blendi Kovaci Less Felipe de Loyola Basso at the Stage 2 playoffs.

Abroad, fate seemed to mock them even more. Masters Madrid saw them flunk out of the tournament winless. Then came Masters Shanghai and Champions: two grand finals appearances, two 3-2 losses.

And 2025 hasn't exactly been the nicest year to Team Heretics either. Despite winning the Esports World Cup back in July, their regional results have again fell just short of the mark and the international results have been lackluster.

But they are hoping a win over T1 sets them back on the path they struggled to finish last year. After stunning America's darling G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #2 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf 2-0 in the opening match, Heretics bested T1 in two sweaty maps today: Lotus (13-10) and Sunset (13-11)

”Chemically engineered to dominate the game.”

But that Lotus win could have easily swayed in T1's favor.

As the final rounds of regulation approached, the Koreans had already chained five rounds to go from 12-5 to 12-10; the comeback was, in fact, real. A bit of a chaotic 23rd round saw deaths happen across the entire map, which left RieNs by himself against stax and DH .

Heretics' initiator player opted to go for a C plant. He then decided to move across the waters as T1's players rolled onto site, which allowed RieNs to surprise stax and DH in a quick 1v2. That clutch, which was also a 3K, put a stop to T1's comeback and gave Heretics the win on their map pick.

The 1v2 also gave Heretics some much-needed confidence to enter Sunset, T1's pick and by far their best map in the current pool. The EMEA roster were stretched thin and were pushed all the way to the final round of regulation, but a last-minute rally allowed them to stop an A retake and clinch the key round to take victory and move on to the playoffs.

RieNs' clutch was just a sliver of the show he put on today. By the time the first map was over, RieNs had accumulated a 1.45 rating, jumping ahead of teammate Wo0t largely thanks to his nine assists and a higher KAST of 87%. Wo0t, though, still stood out with seven opening kills.

This Turkish pair again dominated the field on Sunset, topping the charts for their team. But Meteor was the best one throughout that map, following his latest Sunset performance against DRG, with a 1.45 rating, 190 ADR, 88% KAST, and 24 kills — six of them openers — all while playing Cypher.

RieNs celebrating at Champions The key to Heretics' victory today. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

It's not been easy for Team Heretics. They had to spend all of 2024 making playoffs, reaching finals at home and abroad, but that's where their luck ran out. In essence, the Spain-based outfit spent all of last year watching others lift trophies that they felt belonged to them.

Last year's Champions was Heretics' latest grand finals appearance abroad. Back then, they clinched the first spot of their group with a win over a Pacific team.

A year on from that, Heretics have clinched the first spot of their group with a win over a Pacific team. They needed three maps to do so in 2024, but only two (sweaty) maps in 2025.

They can only hope that history doesn't repeat itself, and a title is actually in their future this time around.