Paper Rex sweep KRÜ in something’s debut

Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov have secured their first international win with something, finding victory in their opening Group A match against KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Rank #3 keznit Angelo Mori Klaus Nicolas Ferrari Shyy Fabian Usnayo Melser Marco Eliot Machuca Amaro heat Olavo Marcelo 2-0. It was the first match where Paper Rex fielded something ever since winning the VCT Pacific grand finals over 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 late May.

“It's not about pressure, I just missed playing on stage. The first five, six rounds on Split, I was just a bit shaky and nervous. But, after that, I calmed down and started playing,” something said of his debut. “I don't think I'll be as nervous in the next match.”

something did not seem nervous in the opening rounds of Split, scoring two 3Ks in the first half alone in a total of 12 kills on attack. Overall, though, Paper Rex's star had a quiet opening game.

Despite the 34 frags, the second-most on the server, his 1.09 rating was one of the lowest on Paper Rex. mindfreak traded the spotlight for a consistent performance, which he rounded out with a +11 kill differential and 17 assists on Astra, as well as the highest rating of the match.

After Paper Rex's statement win on KRÜ's Split pick and their 8-0 start to Pearl, the VCT Pacific champions looked set to wrap it up quickly. But KRÜ made them sweat for it, clawing back four rounds by halftime. keznit showed up in the final two rounds of that half, with a spectacular Operator 1v2 through a smoke.

something didn't mince words when asked about that clutch: “After that shot, I just… ‘what the fuck?'”

That clutch, and a 3K in the following round, got KRÜ's foot in the door. They then won a third pistol, closing the gap to 8-6. Paper Rex replied with three rounds, but KRÜ nailed two of their own and finally forced alecks to call his first timeout of the day.

“I think we were in the lead most of the time. Whenever I thought of taking time out, they had already discussed the solution before him, or at least had a good game plan in mind. So I didn't need to do anything,” alecks explained. “With regards to Pearl, I think it's also because [KRÜ] were starting to catch fire. I think being confident enough to walk all the way into B is something that only a confident team does, so I needed to pause and we needed to discuss that moment.”

From there, Paper Rex took a breezy 13-8 win that closed out the match.

“Even though we were really suffering internally with the adaptation, there was always a good attitude to try to respond to the problems that the enemy team was giving to us,” head coach Atom said. “When you clutch those rounds it's obviously a lot easier to carry on, and those rounds stimulated us to believe and to trust each other.”

Pearl seemed to follow the tendency Paper Rex set on Split. f0rsakeN 's men seemed to let KRÜ breathe just enough to think they had a chance, but would then immediately kick the game into high gear and run over their opponents. Split was a tight map up until KRÜ's 4-3 lead, at which point PRX decided to switch up the tempo and run over their opponents for a 13-7 win.

“Paper Rex is a completely different style than the [Americas'],” Atom explained. “It was hard for us to get the reads in the match and know how we should react to the way they played. They were superior to us and that's why they won.”

DaveeyS also pointed to the team's decision making, stress, and lack of quick reactions in the server as reasons for their loss.

keznit's clutch was the only one on Pearl, and the second of the day. The only other clutch was from d4v41 on the 12th round of Pearl, where he lurched onto B site to take down three. keznit was also KRÜ's best player today, as the only one to average a rating over 1.00 in the match. His 179 ADR on Raze and Jett was the highest of the match, but he was still second to something in opening duels, as the Russian won nine to keznit's seven.

KRÜ's loss to Paper Rex is the first the team has suffered since the end of the VCT Americas. They came into the match on a hot five-win streak from the Americas LCQ, recovering from an 0-10 start to the year, but have hit a bump once more.

“Everybody understands that losing rounds, maps, series is part of the game. We learned how to deal with losses after the nine consecutive losses that we got in the regular season,” Atom commented. “What's left is to leave that behind, leave this one loss behind, and come back with a new face and new forces.”

KRÜ need that fresh face for their elimination match, which they play on Aug. 11 against 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) or Giants Gaming Giants Gaming Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Fit1nho Adolfo Gallego nukkye Žygimantas Chmieliauskas hoody Aaro Peltokangas Cloud Kirill Nehozhin . Should KRÜ lose, it will be the third international event in a row the team attends and exits in the group stage.

“I don't really care who we have to play. It's more about us and playing better,” Klaus said.

Paper Rex play the third match of tomorrow, Group A's winner match, against the winner of that same bout.

“I think EDG will win, but we prefer to play Giants because EDG is someone we scrim with all the time,” alecks said. “It's usually harder to play against someone that comes from your region, in my opinion. But I am rooting for EDG though.”