LOCK//IN was the first taste of what partnered teams were bringing to the table. Now with months of practice from VCT regional play, teams have had a chance to refine their playstyles and gear up for the second international event this year: Masters Tokyo.

Three Pacific teams will be repping the region: two mainstays at international LANs over the past years, and one newcomer. All three of them are gunning for that shiny Yoru-masked trophy. The stakes are high for not just individual teams but also partnered regions since, similar to LOCK//IN, the winner of Masters Tokyo will receive an extra slot at Champions 2023.

The VCT Pacific Grand Finals Stage. Photo by Riot Games.

Paper Rex (#1 seed)

Paper Rex is a team on a winning streak, with them having a flawless run through the playoffs to be the first seed out of the Pacific League. At LOCK//IN, they were eliminated in their first match against Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #9 Xeppaa Erick Bach runi Dylan Cade moose Kaleb Jayne vanity Anthony Malaspina OXY Francis Hoang and the event's brutal format meant that was all anyone would see out of them.

They had a bit of a rocky start in the Pacific League as well, facing losses to Team Secret Team Secret Asia-Pacific Rank #6 invy Adrian Jiggs Reyes BORKUM Jim Timbreza JessieVash Jessie Cuyco Jremy Jeremy Cabrera NDG Noel De Guia and DRX DRX Korea Rank #1 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) BuZz Yu Byung-chul (유병철) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) BeYN Kang Ha-bin (강하빈) in two of their first four games. After their loss to Team Secret, perhaps Paper Rex read the writing on the wall: something had to change.

The team announced their signing of Ilya "something" Petrov, the Russian superstar who had been topping the killboard in VCL Japan Split 1. He was the missing piece of the puzzle that Paper Rex needed to have the firepower to go up against their dreaded foe and APAC's final boss DRX.

Even though Paper Rex, with something, lost to DRX the first time they faced them, after that, it was a clean sweep for Paper Rex. They made it to playoffs as the second seed and locked in their spot at the grand finals after 2-0ing T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 Sayaplayer Ha Jeong-woo (하정우) Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo Carpe Lee Jae-hyeok (이재혁) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) xccurate Kevin Susanto and DRX, the latter for the first time in PRX's history. The two teams had a rematch in the grand finals, but Paper Rex pulled off a reverse sweep and won three maps in a row to cement themselves as the new kings of APAC. Something was the MVP of the finals, with a +31 kill differential.

Their first major trophy, hopefully not the last. Photo by Riot Games.

Paper Rex announced that they were benching Benedict "Benkai" Tan ahead of Masters Tokyo, but also said that something might not be able to play in the event. As APAC's first seed, they will be starting off directly in the playoffs bracket. Paper Rex are known for their ‘W gaming' methodology, one that has served them well with the addition of something to the roster and his synergy with f0rsakeN and Jinggg . Will that be enough though for them to win their first global trophy?

DRX (#2 seed)

The Korean titans have one of the most storied histories in Valorant. Their core, under their original name Vision Strikers Vision Strikers Inactive stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Rb Goo Sang-min (구상민) Zest Kim Ki-seok (김기석) BuZz Yu Byung-chul (유병철) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) , had the most notorious win streak in Valorant history with 102 wins. At LOCK//IN, they almost reverse swept LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #1 Quick Gabriel Lima saadhak Matias Delipetro Less Felipe de Loyola tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira in the semifinals but fell to them and placed third at the event.

The team has not changed much from last year, with the exception of the addition of Foxy9 as their star duelist, though in some games, BuZz picks up the duelist mantle instead while Zest fills as an initiator/controller. In the Pacific League, the team had an almost flawless win streak, where they only lost one series to Team Secret on their way to becoming the top seed in the playoffs. MaKo was also named the MVP of the regular season.

The playoffs started well: DRX were able to get revenge against Team Secret, who had prevented them from winning the season flawlessly, winning map two and three with a scoreline of 13-5 and 13-4. Their next game was against Paper Rex in the upper finals, a team they had always beat before.

Not this time. Paper Rex beat them 2-0, knocking them into the lower bracket where they had to face off against their next challenger: T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 Sayaplayer Ha Jeong-woo (하정우) Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo Carpe Lee Jae-hyeok (이재혁) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) xccurate Kevin Susanto . It was a close series which went to all five maps of which three of them ended 13-11, but DRX eventually prevailed to rematch against Paper Rex in the grand finals.

Although DRX surged out of the gates with back-to-back wins to put themselves just one map from the Pacific League Trophy, Paper Rex found a last spark to burn away DRX's lead. Paper Rex went on to pull the reverse sweep by winning the next three maps convincingly, with the decider map ending 13-3. Despite DRX's consistency throughout the season, they just couldn't hold against the firepower coming out of f0rsakeN, Jinggg, and something.

As a result of being Pacific's second seed, they will have to make their way through the group stage. Their first game in Group B is against Attacking Soul Esports Attacking Soul Esports Inactive monk Wang Haoyu (王浩宇) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) YHchen Chen Yuhan (陳昱瀚) Zero1 Meng Zhen Ren (任梦真) , the second seed from China. Will DRX be able to pick themselves back up and finally win an international VCT event?

DRX after beating T1 in the lower finals. Photo by Riot Games.

T1 (#3 seed)

The third seed for APAC is yet another Korean squad, albeit one without DRX's international experience. T1 built a roster from scratch - they traded with C9 last year for xeta and coach Autumn for player curry . They also signed a player who had initially played controller on the organization's short-lived NA team and who had last year proved he was one of the best duelists in NA, Sayaplayer . They further added Munchkin of Crazy Raccoon Crazy Raccoon Inactive fame, ban who had previously played for Knights, and iNTRO who had experience with Gen.G Gen.G Korea Rank #2 Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Meteor Kim Tae-O (김태오) Lakia Kim Jong-min (김종민) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태) . As their sixth member, the roster signed a star, but one in another game, a complete wildcard: Carpe .

At LOCK//IN, T1 were eliminated right off the bat by FURIA FURIA Brazil Rank #8 kon4n Vitor Hugo mwzera Leonardo Serrati havoc Ilan Eloy Khalil Khalil Schmidt nzr Agustin Ibarra . Afterwards, their time in the Pacific League went a bit better, if still a bit rocky. They lost to Paper Rex and Gen.G in their first three games, but after that it was smooth sailing.

They would win against every other team in the league except DRX, and made it to the VCT Pacific playoffs as the third seed. This meant they had to play an additional series as only the top two of the qualified teams made it to the upper semifinals directly. Their first game was against Gen.G Gen.G Korea Rank #2 Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Meteor Kim Tae-O (김태오) Lakia Kim Jong-min (김종민) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태) , where they found revenge with a close 2-1 victory. Their next opponent was Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov , who despite close games, ended up beating T1 without heading to a map three.

In the lower bracket, they once again had to face off against Gen.G, where they again found a clean win — this one clinching them the qualification to both Masters Tokyo and Champions 2023. They ended up narrowly losing against DRX DRX Korea Rank #1 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) BuZz Yu Byung-chul (유병철) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) BeYN Kang Ha-bin (강하빈) in the lower bracket finals in a series that went to all five maps, and placed third overall in the Pacific League.

Since week eight of the Pacific League regular season, T1 have been running the same roster with iNTRO not playing. Carpe has also shown drastic signs of improvement, with him now coming in clutch and putting up numbers on the initiator role. Overall, T1 have leveled up quite a bit since their time at LOCK//IN. Will it be enough for them at Masters Tokyo though?

T1 take the stage. Photo by Riot Games.

As the third seed from Pacific, they will have to fight through the group stage to make it to the playoffs. In group A, their first encounter is against China's seed one - EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) Muggle Tang Shijun (唐时俊) CHICHOO Wan Shunji (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Haodong Guo Haodong (郭浩东) .