The penultimate week of VALORANT Champions kicked off with the opening playoff matches, where teams from the Americas region once again proved their dominance. Defending champions NRG and LOUD secured confident victories, sending Pacific region representatives — T1 and Paper Rex — to the tournament's lower bracket.
In the first match of the day, NRG defeated T1 with a score of 2-0. On the first map (Lotus), T1 seized the early initiative, but the individual skill of NRG's players allowed them to snatch a 13-11 victory. On their own map pick, Summit, NRG faced some pressure but, thanks to excellent attacking play and masterful use of agents KAY/O (Ethan "Ethan" Arnold) and Brimstone (Georgio "keiko" Sanassy), closed out the game 13-7. The decisive moment was the American squad's run, during which they won the final six rounds in a row.
In the second series, the 2022 world champions LOUD defeated Paper Rex 2-0. Initially, the Brazilians confidently took Split. On the second map, Sunset, the Singaporean squad put up strong resistance and even held a 9-3 lead after the first half. However, LOUD managed an impressive comeback, forcing overtime and eventually securing a 15-13 victory. The team's main driving force was the duo of Roberto "erde" Lobos and Lucca "lukxo" Travaioli. Specifically, the Brazilian erde had a phenomenal series, recording 52 kills, 9 of which were first kills.
The winners will face each other in the next round of the upper bracket on Saturday. This will be their first matchup since the VCT Americas Stage 2 lower bracket final in São Paulo, where LOUD claimed victory after five maps. Meanwhile, T1 and Paper Rex will play against each other in the lower bracket on Friday: the losing team will become one of the first to be eliminated from the playoffs.
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