TALON overcomes Global Esports in Kickoff debut

TALON TALON Asia-Pacific Rank #10 Killua Tanate Teerasawad thyy Anupong Preamsak Crws Thanamethk Mahatthananuyut JitBoyS Jittana Nokngam primmie Papaphat Sriprapha defeated Global Esports Global Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #40 UdoTan Go Kyung-won (고경원) Kr1stal Savva Fedorov kellyS Kelly Sedillo Papi Federico Evangelista Deryeon Derrick Yee 2-1 in the upper quarterfinals of Pacific Kickoff. TALON moves on to play T1 T1 Korea Rank #1 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) in the upper semifinal, while Global Esports has been knocked down to elimination territory versus DetonatioN FocusMe DetonatioN FocusMe Japan Rank #3 Meiy Ibuki Seki Art Jinboong Kim Jin-won (김진원) Akame Yu Gwang-hui (유광희) gyen .

The three-map series played out on Split, Abyss, and Lotus. Global Esports won Split 13-6, and TALON won Abyss 13-9 and Lotus 13-8.

This was TALON's first time returning to the stage for the VCT 2025 after being one of the only teams across the world to not make any roster changes. Their challengers in Global Esports would come in seeking to prove a point after a statement win against Team Secret Team Secret Asia-Pacific Rank #8 invy Adrian Jiggs Reyes JessieVash Jessie Cuyco Wild0reoo Brheyanne Christ Reyes 2GE James Goopio Jremy Jeremy Cabrera in their debut last week.

Global Esports took the first map to Split, the map they picked and comfortably won against Secret. TALON answered the pick with a unique composition that included Yoru, Raze, Breach, and Tejo. Notably, primmie was the one playing Tejo after spending most of the offseason on Duelist agents. Despite the wealth of aggressive utility at their disposal, the Thai squad struggled to get value from it and Global held strong on the sites with superior trap plays from Papi 's Astra and kellyS ' Deadlock for a 10-2 defense.

TALON found a bit more success on their own defense, but a 1v2 from Kr1stal closed out the map 13-6 for Global Esports. UdoTan dominated the server on Raze with 23 kills to 13 deaths, 202 ADR, and a 1.62 rating.

TALON responded with their map pick of Abyss, bringing out Deadlock, Neon, and Viper. They took an early 5-2 lead after a successful force buy in round 2, but a late resurgence from Global ended the half at six rounds apiece.

TALON began to break away in the second half. Global struggled to handle JitBoyS' anchoring or Governor's Operator, leading to TALON winning the last five rounds in a row and taking Abyss 13-9. Statistically, UdoTan continued to shine with 20 kills and 263 ACS, while JitBoyS found 19 kills and a server-leading rating of 1.26 for his side.

The last map went to Lotus. While TALON's composition certainly wasn't conventional, Global's triple-Sentinel composition was the one that drew eyes, featuring Chamber, Deadlock, Vyse, Tejo, and Astra. While it would be expected for the three Sentinels to excel at locking down sites, it was actually TALON finding an early 7-1 lead on their attack side through early picks, clever contact plays, and coordinated C hits. Global managed to pull the first half back to 7-5 with individual skill, especially from Deryeon 's Operator and Headhunter.

A second bonus conversion for TALON effectively sealed the match as they went up to a 11-5 scoreline. Without a Duelist, Global generally struggled to take the space required to plant the spike. While they found a few rounds on their attack, TALON eventually closed out Lotus 13-8. Now on a more aggressive agent, primmie led the server in almost every statistical category with 23 kills to 11 deaths, 289 ACS, and a 1.55 rating, consistently outdueling his opponents at every turn.

With this win, TALON inches one step closer to Masters Bangkok with the hopes of attending the event as the only Thai representatives in the VCT circuit.

TALON will return to battle T1 for a slot in the upper final on Jan 31, while Global Esports will prepare for their elimination match against DetonatioN FocusMe on Jan. 27.