At long last, Champions Paris is here. After nine strenuous months, where 48 teams were all vying for just 16 slots, the world championship has arrived.

Over the next three weeks, those 16 teams — four from each VCT region — will all fight for one thing. They all want to be winners, lift that hourglass-shaped trophy, and earn the right to call themselves World Champions.

Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 PatMen Patrick Mendoza Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov was the first to enter that foray. They played the opening Champions match against Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #2 Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) coconut Colin Patrick Chung (钟弘祖) , in a match where they overcame an early deficit to take Bind 13-9, and then dominated Sunset with a 13-5 win.

Paper Rex's 2-0 victory places them in the winner's match against GIANTX GIANTX Europe Rank #7 Cloud Kirill Nehozhin grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko westside Miłosz Duda Flickless Karel Maeckelbergh ara Hanceriuc Eduard-George or Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #4 N4RRATE Marshall Massey Reduxx Yassin Aboulalazm johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid Kyu Mirel Braco Hrustemovic cortezia Gabriel Cortez .

PRX pose in Paris Surprise, surprise , baby. The king is back. (Photo by Adela Sznajder/Riot Games)

Of all the teams currently in Paris, only EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #3 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) cb Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) can do what none have done before, and win a second world championship. But they'll have fierce competition from teams like G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #2 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf and Sentinels from the Americas, FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Veqaj Sylvain Pattyn Alfajer Emir Ali Beder and Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #6 nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin kamo Kamil Frąckowiak from Europe and, perhaps most notably, T1 T1 Korea Rank #5 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) and Paper Rex from the Pacific.

These last two were this year's Masters winners. Paper Rex won the most recent iteration, Masters Toronto, putting an end to a years-long record of finishing just short of a title.

They're back for more here in Paris, and they came back with a bang, even if Xi Lai put up a decent threat in the early rounds of their Bind pick.

something was quick to stop the Chinese roster though. With the bomb down near Showers he walked up, Operator in hand, and halved the defuse. After destroying NoMan 's Tasmanian Tiger, Xi Lai's Skye peeked and got scoped down. something immediately repeeked, sidestepped happywei 's shots, and quickscoped him to land one of the cleanest clutches of the match.

Tell your next ranked teammates to drop the Operator, they're not something.

Paper Rex easily ran away with the rest of the match from there on. Xi Lai found just three rounds on the second half of Bind — where the Toronto champions won 13-9 — and few more on Sunset, Paper Rex's pick which they took 13-5.

something's clutch was the third in a row either side managed in the first half of Bind. Despite that being one of the most chaotic parts — and halves — of the entire match, Paper Rex actually needed five clutches to take their Sunset win.

Three of those five were 1v1s from d4v41 , who kept to himself for most of the map despite those highlight moments. f0rsakeN was the one showing up on the boards throughout map two, notably scoring down a sneaky flank 4K that secured his team a lead at halftime.

Is he playing Aim Labs?

Throughout that map, he dropped 23 kills and pieced together a 1.59 rating, the second-highest of the match. He was beat only by something's Bind rating of 1.63, despite a more restrained 21 kills and 167 ADR (to f0rsakeN's 183).

That still allowed something to average out a 1.6 rating between both maps, miles away from NoMan, Xi Lai's best player. He eked out a 1.05 rating across the match despite hitting 35 frags, owing largely to his 34 deaths, the second-most in the match.

f0rsakeN writing his signature A star in his own making. (Photo by Colin Young Wolff/Riot Games)

Only one team in the entire VCT history has been able to win more than one international tournament in the same calendar year. That team was FNATIC, back during their legendary 2023 run in which they did it back-to-back.

Paper Rex landed in Paris just three months after lifting the Masters Toronto trophy and a few days after claiming themselves Pacific champions for the third time in their history, extending the regional record.

They dominated everyone back at home, and now they sit atop the world's biggest stage and have just dominated their first opponent.

Whoever dares step up next should be wary.