The penultimate day of VCT Pacific Ascension has wrapped up, ending with SLT Seongnam SLT Seongnam Korea Rank #4 C1ndeR Ko Jae-hyuk (고재혁) Klaus Kim Min-hyuk (김민혁) XuNa Kim Tae-geon (김태건) oonzmlp Shin Sang-beom (신상범) Zexy Jang Suk-hyun (장석현) claiming the first of the region's two Ascension slots after a dominant 3-0 win over BOOM Esports BOOM Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #8 natz Jonathan Adiputra Shiro Hildegard Arnaldo NcSlasher Sheldon Andersen Chandra BerserX Rizkie Adla Kusuma . While BOOM fell just short in the upper final, they will have another shot at securing a spot in VCT in the lower final, where a rematch awaits them. In the lower bracket, Nongshim RedForce Nongshim RedForce Korea Rank #1 Xross Jeonghwan (정환) Rb Goo Sang-min (구상민) Francis Kim Mu-bin (김무빈) Dambi Lee Hyuk-kyu (이혁규) Ivy Park Sung-hyeon (박성현) wrapped up a dominant 2-0 victory over Motiv Esports Motiv Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #2 wayne Wayne Chang to set up a rematch of 2024's grand final against BOOM.

Nongshim RedForce dominates Motiv Esports

After finishing at the bottom of a three-way tie in the group stage, Nongshim RedForce entered the playoffs with the objective clear: win out or go home with no VCT in 2026. In a best-of-three series against Motiv Esports, Nongshim brushed aside Motiv, outclassing them in a 2-0 sweep that saw the Korean side drop just seven rounds.

The series started on a pair of maps that both teams played the day before. Motiv's pick of Bind was the map that it defeated NAOS NAOS Asia-Pacific Rank #7 Nakya Alehandro Fabian Simanjorang Mojer Jerome Literal 14-12 on, while Nongshim's Lotus pick was the final map in the team's dominant 2-0 win over Velocity Gaming Velocity Gaming Asia-Pacific Rank #6 SkRossi Ganesh Gangadhar . Nongshim, electing to start on defense, got into a groove early. Getting an Operator into IGL-turned-Yoru player Francis 's hands was key, while different variations of 1-4 stacks made the attack side a headache for Motiv. After wrapping up its attacker side with a 7-5 lead on Bind against NAOS, Motiv entered halftime down 8-4. Armed with arguably the hardest Duelist to shoot in the event in Dambi , Nongshim was dominant on attack, dropping just one round en route to a 13-5 victory. Francis went a perfect 8-0 in first duels, while Dambi's 19 kills led the map.

After dropping its map pick, Motiv was tasked with a tough obstacle in Lotus, the map that Nongshim took down Velocity 13-4 the day before. Motiv picked Lotus in its opening match of the event, but lost it against E-KING E-KING Oceania Rank #7 KADIRI Floga Blessed Arvin Latkaee ecco Minimise Jackson White . They had not played on it since, banning it twice.

After dropping both pistol rounds on Bind, a pistol round victory on defense had the potential to be a key building block for Motiv, but Nongshim, in true Sin Prisa Gaming Sin Prisa Gaming Inactive Persia Yang Zi-on (양지온) margaret Kim Ji-woo (김지우) Dambi Lee Hyuk-kyu (이혁규) Francis Kim Mu-bin (김무빈) Ivy Park Sung-hyeon (박성현) fashion, flipped the script, winning the eco round to kick off the beginning of the end for Motiv. Francis, often armed with a long-range sniper, seemed the most confident player in all of Thailand on Lotus, poking and prodding the Motiv defense to incite misguided rotations. Dambi had a finger on the W key, often with a Judge in hand, to open up sites for Nongshim, while Ivy found crucial lurk timings to give Nongshim backup plans on the rare occasion that site entries seemed difficult. The Nongshim squad's efforts resulted in an 11-1 lead, with Francis holding a borderline unbelievable scoreline of 27/4.

Motiv started its attack half with a vengeance, winning the pistol, anti-eco, and bonus, but a Nongshim thrifty round threw a wrench into those plans, leading to an eventual 13-4 victory. Through 35 rounds across two maps, Francis finished 45/19, painting his name all across the kill feed while Dambi added an additional 35.

Nongshim will move on to its highest-stakes match since the Pacific Ascension grand final last year, awaiting the losing team between SLT Seongnam and BOOM Esports. The winner of the best-of-five series will ascend into VCT for the 2026 season.

SLT Seongnam stomps BOOM Esports

BOOM and SLT butted heads for the second time this tournament. In the first meeting, SLT claimed a 2-0 victory, with the margin of victory in both maps thin. Sunset, which SLT has been 3-0 on in Ascension, was banned by BOOM, while SLT banned BOOM's strong Bind.

The series opened on Haven and displayed a clash of styles. Both teams went for double-Duelist comps, with BOOM settling into the more meta Yoru-Neon pairing while SLT went for an off-meta Yoru-Jett. SLT made things look easy early on, operating like a well-oiled machine. SLT started on defense and swept through BOOM to kick off the map. A 7-0 run saw BOOM manage just nine kills as a team, also forcing BOOM to burn both of its timeouts early. Intervention from the coaching booth managed to put some wind in the BOOM sails, but the halftime score was still 9-3 for SLT. By the time all ten seats on the stage were empty, SLT had won both pistols, both anti-ecos, and both bonus rounds, dominating 13-5 and ending the map in flashy fashion.

BOOM's pick of Corrode came with no shortage of intrigue. SLT was yet to play on the map during the competition, and fielded a similar team comp to BOOM's. Both teams opted for the Omen-Viper double-controller pairing, supplemented by Fade and Sage. The only difference was the Waylay for SLT and the Neon for BOOM.

Momentum from Haven seemed to carry over onto Corrode. SLT kicked things off on attack with its third-straight pistol round victory, and cruised to another 9-3 halftime lead. BOOM threatened to mount a comeback with its first pistol, anti-eco, and bonus round wins of the series, but SLT swiftly responded with three straight rounds to reach match point. Down 12-6, BOOM again began to claw back, winning a further three straight and forcing the SLT coaching staff to call for a pause. With some heroics from Klaus 's Sage resurrection turning a 1v1 into a 2v1, SLT shut down the BOOM comeback, taking a 2-0 series lead.

The third map of the series, SLT's pick of Abyss, promised plenty of surprises. BOOM was yet to play on the map in the tournament, while SLT played on it once, achieving a 13-8 win over E-KING E-KING Oceania Rank #7 KADIRI Floga Blessed Arvin Latkaee ecco Minimise Jackson White deploying the "mosquito" Jett-Waylay comp that DRX popularized during Champions Paris. Meanwhile, BOOM went for a Jett and Yoru pairing. With the stage playing host to four Duelists once again, SLT played a proactive defender side, making things tough for BOOM as they did on Haven. With an Operator in Zexy's hands shutting down long angles and every member of the team shooting sharp, SLT stormed forward, once again forcing BOOM's coaches to call two early timeouts. Up 8-2, the entirety of the SLT team was on its feet and waving to the other side of the stage.

After stamping 9-3 leads in the first halves of the first two series, SLT dominated their way to a 10-2 lead, making every retake look nearly effortless. BOOM won a pistol round and fended off an SLT force round, a sign of some complacency from SLT. Just around a year after BOOM staged a near reverse-sweep on Sin Prisa Gaming, BOOM seemed poised to mount a large comeback of their own. They won seven of the first eight rounds of the half, but an A-site execute that saw Klaus grab yet another first pick and Zexy push CT with his Dimensional Drift got SLT to VCT point, where Christmas came early for one certain Klaus.

Full-time Duelist player Zexy had a series-high 1.51 rating and 288 ACS, with his 66-kill, 39-death performance tailed by Initiator player XuNa , who had 54 kills. BOOM was sluggish from the start, never really getting into a groove until Abyss. The best performance came from rookie Duelist whitecat , who had 43 kills and was the only BOOM player to go positive in first duels.

Ascended and Ascended-to-be

SLT, for all intents and purposes, were not favorites heading into Ascension. They secured their spot at the tournament by winning Korea WDG Road to Ascension, beating out favorites FEARX FEARX Korea Rank #7 . With the exception of C1ndeR , who had playing experience in the Japanese Challengers scene with REIGNITE REIGNITE Japan Rank #18 and SCARZ SCARZ Japan Rank #10 Art Koki Kagami Gwangboong Kim Gwang-won (김광원) muto BRIAN Medusa An Min-cheol (안민철) , SLT's entire roster is made up of mostly rookies, with the remaining four players only having playing experience on pug squads and being under 20 years old. Now, after going on an undefeated run through Ascension, much like fellow countrymen Sin Prisa/Nongshim the year before, SLT Seongnam will join VCT for the 2026 season as the fourth Korean team in the region.

Whether or not that figure could rise to five will be seen in the lower final, which will see last year's grand finalists BOOM and Nongshim go head-to-head.