Rex Regum Qeon Rex Regum Qeon Asia-Pacific Unranked Monyet Cahya Nugraha xffero David Monangin Jemkin Maksim Batorov Kushy Bryan Carlos Setiawan Estrella Park Gun (박건) have signed Cahya "Monyet" Nugraha as their fifth player. RRQ recently benched fl1pzjder after they missed Stage 1 playoffs, and monyet was moved to Paper Rex's inactive roster upon Jinggg's return to the lineup.
The move reunites monyet with Lmemore and coach Ewok , with whom he played with under the ONIC G ONIC G Inactive banner in 2022. The team reached the APAC LCQ grand final, where they ultimately lost to BOOM Esports. "Monyet has always been a player I wanted to work with again," coach Ewok said. "Once he got placed on the reserve roster at PRX, [we] were of course interested."
While monyet doesn't necessarily represent a one-to-one replacement over fl1pzjder, both monyet and the RRQ roster have shown they are willing and able to make role swaps to accommodate different metas. monyet's best VCT performances have been on controller, and Estrella , who had played the role since joining, was an initiator player for his previous team, Dplus Esports Dplus Esports Korea Unranked NGen Lee Jae-hong (이재홍) Bangnan Jung Min-u (정민우) RedLight Kim Eun-soo (김은수) kAyle Jung Soo-yong (정수용) Only1 Park Dan-il (박단일) .
"monyet brings in a bit more firepower and as a young player he has a lot of room to grow and improve even further," Ewok added. "With Estrella taking over the IGL role for us, its a move that makes a lot of sense. Fl1p is a great player and has been one of the main pillars in our team, but we are always looking [at ways to] improve the team and bring more consistent results."
With monyet's pedigree and experience gained from playing with one of the best teams in the region, RRQ hope to bounce back from a rough start to the 2024 season. Despite not qualifying to either Masters event, Champions qualification is not out of reach for the team. Their positive record in Stage 1 means they are currently in fourth place in the overall standings, and they are tied for sixth place in terms of championship points.
Teams will qualify to Champions based on their Stage 2 playoffs performance, and the top six teams in terms of overall standings advance to playoffs. A fourth seed is available for whichever team has the most championship points but does not finish in the top three.
Rex Regum Qeon Rex Regum Qeon Asia-Pacific Unranked Monyet Cahya Nugraha xffero David Monangin Jemkin Maksim Batorov Kushy Bryan Carlos Setiawan Estrella Park Gun (박건) will next play in Stage 2 against DetonatioN FocusMe DetonatioN FocusMe Japan Unranked Meiy Ibuki Seki Art Jinboong Kim Jin-won (김진원) Akame Yu Gwang-hui (유광희) gyen :