Paper Rex return to form in 2-0 against FUT

Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Unranked mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov have defeated FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Unranked xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban 2-0 in the Group Stage of Champions 2024, eliminating FUT from contention and ending their season. Paper Rex will go on to play EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Unranked 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) to decide the final team going to playoffs.

These teams previously faced off in the opening round of playoffs at the previous Champions in LA, where Paper Rex took a decisive 2-0 victory. Back then, the teams were fighting for a chance to make it deep in the bracket. Today, both teams were coming off 0-2 losses in their opening matches of the group stage and looking to bounce back and stay alive in the tournament.

The match would be played out on Sunset, Bind, and Lotus, a map pool that on paper favored Paper Rex. The Pacific team won Sunset 13-11, and took Bind 13-6 to win the series in two maps.

Surprisingly, it was FUT who elected to pick Sunset as the first map, which had been Paper Rex's strongest map all year and one they had won the last 11 games on. However, FUT was prepared for what their opponents were bringing to the table, and were determined to end that win streak.

The first half of Sunset was an intense back-and-forth affair, with neither team able to combine more than two consecutive rounds. It started with a 1v3 pistol round from d4v41 , but thrifty rounds and narrow victories ensured that neither team was able to build up any momentum to mount a sizeable lead. yetujey was a standout player for FUT during the half, getting numerous multi-kills that helped win them crucial rounds to keep the score to a close 7-5 in favor of Paper Rex.

In the second half, FUT was finally able to put together a string of rounds on their attacking half, as a pistol into bonus conversion allowed them to take a 9-7 lead, their first of the map. Paper Rex were looking shaky, with many rounds devolving into them peeking into the FUT players one by one, leading to easy post-plant victories for the Turkish squad, keeping them ahead 11-9. However, round 21 would be a turning point for Paper Rex, as d4v41 and something combined their Wingman and Barrier Orb to counter the popular Sunset-B-Main post-plant and sneak out a defuse on the spike. This would be the turning point for the map, as Paper Rex went on to win the next three rounds to close out the map 13-11.

The next map was played on Bind, Paper Rex's pick. The team had been trying out numerous different compositions on the map, using three different comps in their last three times playing the map. Today, they once again chose something new, but instead of the unique Paper Rex style agents that they usually play, they decided to use something more standard, resulting in a mirror match with FUT.

When asked about the change in comp after the match, d4v41 echoed the team's sentiment behind the decision. “This is our last chance to show that we deserve to be here, and let's go back to our default,” he said.

Immediately, Paper Rex came out of the gates looking revitalized, jumping out to a 7-0 lead with their classic WGaming style working to perfection. FUT would fight back with two rounds of their own, but back-to-back triple kills from Jinggg and d4v41 put Paper Rex up 9-3 to close out the half.

A second pistol win for Paper Rex gave them an even greater 11-3 lead, putting the map far out of reach for FUT, who only managed to rally three more rounds before being sent home. Throughout Bind, Jinggg was absolutely dominant, putting up 21 kills, 8 first kills, and a 1.32 rating, the highest in the server.

This winless result comes as a disappointment for FUT, who recently had their highest placement yet, coming in the top six of Masters Shanghai. Both teams had their sights set on winning the championship, but that dream will end for the Turkish team with this loss.

Paper Rex will move on to face EDward Gaming in the decider match for playoffs. This is the sixth time the two have faced each other, having gone toe to toe at every international event since the debut of the Chinese team, barring LOCK//IN.