Paper Rex May NEVER Win A Tournament... Here's Why! 

We are all gathered here today for the sadness of PRX

that 2v1 clutch from bang was heartbreaking man 😢

They threw 5 man advantages on Icebox and so many post plants.

prx problem no 1 : they never peek together

You pointed out the maps and made me realize something else, not just that Raze is meta on them. Fracture: Forces both sides to play aggressive or else lose space; Defense could get pinched really easily and Attack can capitalize on the lost Defender space. Taking A Main, Dish, B Main/Tree and/or Arcade can decide a round, especially if both sides of the site can be taken. Split: Very execute-heavy, dumping util and protecting Mid at all costs, or risk getting pinched Fracture-style. Bind: The Teleporters allow some aggro plays to avoid punishment by aggressing on different parts of the map quickly, usually Hookah and/or Showers. Sunset: Aggressively taking Mid control and/or the Mains completely locks them down, seeing as their choke points are so small, just like the map theyre in. Raze also takes a lot more space because Sunset is smaller, getting really deep into the sites and catching rotates through Boba or Alley/A Link. Lotus cause why not: Aggressively taking A Rubble with a lot of util and at least 3 players usually, forcing Attackers to pick a different site or wait until Rubble is empty by pulling rotates. Hits also tend to hit very hard with the size of the sites compared to the map. Anything stand out? You get rewarded for being really aggressive. PRX is an aggressive team. Breeze you could be aggro on but the shear size doesnt really justify putting anything more than a sniper into. Haven and Ascent are best played passively on Defense and Attackers tend to default a lot, to find where players are playing, find the weaker site(s) and find the Sentinel to overwhelm or avoid. Pearl is an oddity that even I still dont know how to play. Lotus isnt the best for PRX only because they choose to not have a Sentinel, something thats not worth the difficulty of holding the 3 sites without one; having more to dump into Rubble, Mound and B Main is useful, but not worth losing an anchor. PRX likes and does well playing on maps that allow them to be aggressive, while Lotus can punish them and reward them for a single agent choice. They really need to tune the aggression down if they want to have more success on other maps, especially with Haven coming back it and Ascent will be very common im sure of it.

Honestly, PRX just feels like they don't know how they want to play the meta. They use to be so confident in their off meta picks, but frankly, it feels so indecisive watching them play cause it's like do they play aggro or slow down. and they just don't know (and yes I know the format doesn't help). Idk, I think they need to reflect overall how they want to approach moving forward but I hope they don't become meta slaves cause I know for sure that will be the official death of them.

As a Prx fan I sadly feel like we deserved to lose that 100t game. Too many great plays followed by map losing plays. I think we can all agree that Prx needs to learn from this loss and if they can learn from this loss I hope champs is where we can finally see success.

PRX were definitely in a bad form all throughout Shanghai (yes, even when they won against EDG), especially on their heavy hitters of f0rsakeN and Jinggg. Too many rounds thrown, lack of discipline, constantly overpeeking, their shots weren't hitting, etc. When I was watching their games, I could see a lot of moments where something whiffed and/or died first, but somehow he ends up topfragging for the team. If that's how your topfrag looks like, well, I'm not gonna say anything about the rest of the team. I'm not saying that they're a bad team, they're just so far from their best form. Just the fact that they threw that many rounds and lost 1-2 in a close OT against 100T already says a lot about how good they actually are; there is a world where they won that Icebox game against 100T with that form, while being so far from their best form.

Congrats to PRX for winning champs 2024 and winning 3 international tournaments in a row in 2025🎉🎉

you're making me relive the pain from that ice box game you cruel cruel man

been to every international event since '22 reykjavik but still folds under pressure on stage 😓

I am never a 'blame the team' type of guy for anything. But this time I felt like it for the first time. I felt like prx threw a lot and I was kind of mad. At the end of the day, I'm just a nobody at home and they are the players on the international stage; but yeah it felt bad this time

People think that Paper Rex inherently cannot have discipline, cannot play as a team, and cannot reach high heights. All of that is simply untrue. We’ve seen them play much better, with much more discipline, completely utilizing all pieces of the puzzle to win. The only problem is the fact that they don’t choose to. They all have the ability to comm a bit more, to swing together, to respect their opponents. They did it right against Gen. G in Split 1 and in 2023. But for some reason they came into Shanghai with a sense of irritability and impatience to just go ahead and win which ultimately led to their demise. This makes the entire ordeal all the more disappointing. Paper Rex always has the potential to go far, and this time they didn’t choose to.

Thank you for the reasonable, non-doomer take on W gaming and PRX. It's been frustrating to see all the recent manifestos breaking down why W gaming needs to come to an end and so on so forth when PRX has actually done very well with W gaming, even as recently as Split 1. It's not even a "live by the sword, die by the sword" thing. They're genuinely a good team that can absolutely thrive and take the trophy, IF their form were consistent. Sadly, it isn't ever that consistent (besides 2023, arguably) and their play style starts crumbling when something goes wrong, but PRX almost beating 100T even in the worst form we'd seen from them in the past 1.5 years should be a testament to how much better this team can be. That being said, there's no excuse for their Masters Shanghai performance - they started right at the Playoffs and by all means had the clearest shot straight into the Grand Finals, and they had more time than any of their fellow 1st seed teams to prepare. I don't know what went wrong during the tournament, but it was clear that PRX wasn't even doing the things they were known for doing well all through Shanghai, and THAT was why they had such an overall poor showing. We rarely saw their Someswing double-peeks or triple-peeks, we hardly saw any of their set microplays they would always pull out, and like TMV said, all the discipline that they had as a team (which we saw throughout 2023 and Split 1, mind you!) was thrown out the window. I hope they use Split 2 to clean things up for Champions, because they absolutely need to be drilled and ready if want to even think of getting into Top 3. Their map pool was concerning even prior to Shanghai, and I do think that part of that problem is the fact that Alecks is mostly on his own. Even if they have a volunteer analyst that helps out, it would still benefit the team massively, I think, if they had a fresh perspective with them full-time; someone who can hammer home fundamentals, help them flesh out their map pool, and help Alecks with cooking up anti-strats when there's not a lot of prep time between matches at internationals.

Five S or A Tier players forming a B+ team. 😢 Reminds of the Phoenix Suns the last few years…

Being both a liquid and prx fan atp I'm reaching lobotomy kaisen levels of hopium for a win for either of them

Isn’t this most teams at Shanghai? Felt like the level of play for the tournament can best be described as inconsistent or messy.

16:39 : alecks did give an interview yesterday or the day before, in which he says that he has already thought about a potential raze nerf and that they are working on making jingg play other agents, especially since forsaken will have to stop enabling jingg's plays as much as he has done since jingg came back in order to be more useful on his own and for the whole team. Oc this doesn't tell us how they will be doing after the next patch but regarding these statments and how talented the whole group is, I wouldnt be too worried about their future on the international stage

15:50 I think it's also cuz they don't have a designated Sova or Fade player, on those maps recon agents are heavily favoured. I know F0rsaken has played sova and fade before in matches but on those maps he always plays a flash initiator like Kay/O, Skye, etc

very good video & analysis!

their aggression used to be smart and coordinated, but this time it wasnt

I feel like PRX are low key running into the EDG problem with apac now. Other than GenG, they can walk over apac teams without much discipline or strategy with just raw skill. But they didnt turn that off for the masters, which are the best teams of every region. Call it ego or overconfidence, but everyone on PRX is far too comfortable swinging multiple players

Honestly, I like their confidence for swinging and looking for kills or what is often called "W Gaming". However, their decision to overpeek in conditions that are favorable to them is really annoying. They often say that that's their way of playing or that they play for fun. But they should also be able to adapt more and make good decisions, if they really want to win at this international stage. During Master Shanghai, Paper Rex also seemed to be struggling and there were no significant changes with Jing's return. It only adds aim power, but in terms of gameplay it's still the same as the previous Paper Rex. Maybe for the Pacific region they can still be one of the top teams. But when they meet teams from other regions and with different gameplay that they rarely face, it will definitely be more difficult if they don't want to change their habits.

I've been saying this thanks for pointing out. Prx suffers from comp issues even though they have forsaken and davai because jing only plays raze and something only plays jett as meta agents now gekko because of skye nerfs. They avoid any map that needs sova and overcook the comp

The nerves got them. An OP with a turret lost to a classic. Ridiculous.

This absolutely hurts bro

It’s like they play like they don’t care but when they lose they actually care like wtf bro lock in

stages of grief is so true, its up and down always as a prx fan lol

we need old prx ascent comp back

I feel the way they use the breeze comp is worse than if they used the copenhagen finals comp😅

prx in champs 2023 was their best run , coordinated plays that worked , everyone was playing well and wining clutches

really well said tmv!! i couldnt express my sadness when prx lost, and seeing all the negative comments blaming the players didn't feel right!! but i do feel the highs are really high, and the lows are really low as a prx fan. loved the analysis and criticism. great video!!

PRX place bad at one tournament in the last 3 years (excluding lock in) and the fanbase is in shambles. 100T was in shambles for 3 years and finally get good results and the fanbase for those 3 years wasn’t nearly as dooming at PRX is right now.

they gotta be able to control the sword

Prx just need fracture,pearl,split,bind,acend, sunset and lotus as it's map pool and they would win the Tournament

Yeah i was pulling my hair every time prx played this tournament... I feel like there's so many prpblem with the synergy, timing, and discipline compared to when they play in other events, and I dont know if it's just the pressure of expectations (ofc being the favorites to win the event), lack of practice, or just bad day for everybody there. Or maybe they are just tired after the very long and tight season. Who knows, let's just hope PRX comes back strong as we know them to be.

look a lot better with the clean shave

he said what i didn't want to hear (but knew to be true since they lost). Though I don't think the discipline is as much of an issue as the other two, since it wins them more rounds that it loses.

Really sad to see my favorite team goes out like this, but i think they can easily win last match IF they are more discipline and play together. I barely see any "someswing" on the last series vs 100t compared to any other series on Stage 1

The reason prx losing the discipline is because alecks giving the power to call to something and jingg starting on stage1 thats probably reason of overly aggressive call from prx on shanghai

They dont have real IGL that control the pace and synergy that make them in the same page, they just run it like its ranked game. I mean its professional game you know, their trade game also overall is so bad, their individual is awesome, miracle that they can play individually like that in professional.

They just troll most of the time, I can’t deal with this anymore. Time to support Gen G, best pacific team😂

Can we talk about how i got kicked form Jing's dc server and was called toxic when i was just giving my opinions on the PRX's breeze comp and how much they trolled some rounds. I wonder if the members have ever touched Valorant. And to be fair i wasnt being toxic or anything Im a PRX stan too SADGE

For sure they need more flexibility on agents something used to play raze a lot before he joined prx and I’ve seen jingg play Jett on stream one of them needs to learn some kayo skye fade so they can get some sentinels in their comps most of those maps you showed they’re bad on are maps where the sentinel is essential and they don’t play it

loved that 100t picked breeze, force jingg to not play raze, even getting icebox for map 3 was huge because i feel like paper rex is contradicting themselves being "W gaming" but running 2 sentinels, feel like putting jingg on a gekko or just another duelist helps so much, plus with these raze nerfs coming it makes me worry especially seeing that prx worst maps are non raze maps

Having been PRX fan since the beginning of the team I can honestly say they've improved so much with their team play and taming the aggression to their advantage. IDK what was going on at Shanghai but something felt off even from the first game against G2. I know Mindfreak has talked about exhaustion with the schedule before, maybe something with that? I really couldn't say and we'll likely never know but I really hope to see them back in their peak form for stage 2 and Champs.

PRX are the RCB of Valorant

Every time you showed a clip i had to skip, it was such a sad match I can't bear to relive it.

I'm not sure if they even want to win anymore, they just kept throwing rounds on Icebox. It was hard to watch. At one point I asked myself why I'm even supporting this team that isn't even playing to win.

whenever i see Ilya throwing rounds I will just turn off the broadcast and refresh vlr instead. They can still win those games bc of just raw frags but it gets too ugly for me.

The problem why they probably wont win is because they become predictable later on in the tournament and atleast 3 need to perform exeptionally well every map and they are heavily affected by mentality (prx are more becuase they need to win their fights that are mosty 50/50 or worse odds) once they get to like semifinale teams are much more likely to read their aggresivness and when they punish their mental goes down and with no mental is no confidence and that means no winning for prx

I'd suggest retiring Jinggg if he's not upto learning more agents. Put Forsaken or even Davaii on duelist and get an IGL. Because the way I see it, the amount of dry swinging that they do contribute to to the fact that there's no IGL resulting in little to no util coordination.

Can someone tell me what he says at the end "maps they are good on "raises meter on""?

tbh prx can 100% still win champs with W gaming but they do need to be more disciplined in they plays

They should have forsaken sentinel role focus I think

The observation of PRX’s map pool is honestly very astute. Generally, everyone had a good idea of what they were good at or preferred, but damn actually being able to pinpoint it to whether playing Raze was advantageous puts a new perspective on their reliance on Jinggg.

This makes me wonder y would any team would wanna pick up a solo prx player coz they wouldn’t fit in their playstyle and wouldn’t have the discipline which angers any coach even alecks

@PaperRex should listen to this video .i Totally agree about Synergy and Map Pool

it's so painful watching these clips, why plant up on ice box A site if you aren't gonna spray it?

They need a leader to be the person controlling them mid round, they keep taking unnecessary fight when they could have play for time.

Previously forsaken on yoru on breeze dominated the entire map my ideology is u let forsaken go duel in non raze maps

Alecks was trying out a new "freestyle" Prx with jinggg as the igl where "if you feel like doing something then just do it, don't be scared to die" and basically abandon everything they've ever worked for. That is jail time honestly. Idk how he even think that has a chance of winning doing ranked gameplay. Alecks is definitely getting delusional

can someone (anyone) at least point out that bang and eeiu were both worth like 4 rounds this map? huge impact being undersold because a lot of focus is on PRX

tmv is right prx can be discipline when they need to idk why they played worse than split 1 like that, that upper finals vs eg was trully the peak of paper rex

I feel like they just dont play well under pressure tho, they get better results playing with a sub and with a new player, I think if they have nothing to lose they will play well, but once they feel like they have to win, the team just falls apart

i always thought monyet was better for prx regardless of his perfomance at madrid and regardless of how good jing is having flexibility with monyets omen/astra is very important for them

There is no way alecks is allowing this level of throwing, right? At this point, get a new coach who can keep his composure or get an assistant coach + analyst. they clearly hv the funds. fking done with this team

It's crazy that this team has been together for so long but the team chemistry is still unstable. U literally can toss a coin for every match for PRX. At best, they look like one of the best teams this year. At worst, they look like 5 good players with little to no synergy. G2 and GenG looked more cohesive as a team, especially G2. G2 you can see the stats that there is no clear best player in that team. I know it's Leaf but they qualify for the upper final without Leaf performing at their best. That's insane.

Tbh i think burnout is a thing too, I've been expecting this to happen ever since Sentinels and all the other teams that qualified for Madrid started bumming out.... yeah, there are teams like Gen G who manage to keep going, but honestly with prx being a very mood based team i thought it was a matter of time. Shame it happened in Shanghai, and i think a lot can also be said about their level of play not being high enough yet to maintain their vr crucial good coordination, hive mind decisiveness in situations of high pressure. They just play solo when pressured, in my observation. Performance coach maybe?

Prx is getting too cocky. They think out aiming their opponents is enough but it's not. G2, 100T, and even Team Secret has proven this

Maybe its the lack of an igl like boostio? I mean boostio was able to bring 100t up

I do hope they won't do any more roster changes soon, the chemistry between them is already good. They just really need to improve and seal off the flaws from their strats. Champs Seoul might be their last shot.

nice cut man

Prx never winning International because they have become a lot predictable. Even GENG might be better than PRX in Pacific at this moment. Every team around them are getting better even Team Secret beat them in stage 1. It'll be really hard for them in stage 2 because all team in stage 2 will get meta shift advantage from raze to neon. Talon already implement neon with governor, so all of the teams on apac will challenge them a lot harder this time because it's like a last chance qualification for champs. If PRX don't make seoul it'll be a huge disappointment in VCT history. 😔

Honestly the utility for prx in shanghai is horrid compared to stage 1. The team dynamic seems to be off somehow

Glass cannon team basically

nice haircut bro

Tldr: PRX playing like its ranked

Looks as if they were throwing so that 100t can make their story line

I think a lot of teams have gotten comfortable playing the “anti Paper Rex strategy” which is to counter and punish them being over aggro. They do it too much and too predictably, and I hope soon we get to see a Paper Rex that finds an unpredictable balance of passive and aggressive. Because unfortunately, when your core identity is aggro aggro aggro, don’t be surprised when people counter that.

Copenhagen final game and 100t game was same type of loss they were always in disadvantage due to lack of game coordination

imo their w gaming style should be utilized smartly, should call to be more disciplined

Omg finally made a video about them now they win champs

maybe they need an IGL than can inject discipline in W gaming

Tbh the biggest issue is them never fricken peaking together (and when they do they do it purely), especially during post plants

Agree heavy on the map pool, you can see teams like G2 and GenG having the best map pools and are currently doing well. If a team is gonna start 0-1 every series, they’re never gonna win anything.

Shaved man's Valorant?

I have lost faith in this team

I cannot believe I finally said this, but when I see them playing Breeze against 100T it's one rare moment when I say oh having Jingg is a burden. PRX is good at Icebox and Pearl where Raze isn't meta but yeah. I have to agree with TMV here. And what hurts me more is that they HAD THE SOLUTION. They signed Monyet, and they can finally play Breeze. Give Monyet more time and the team will overcome their issue. I always say that nowadays you cannot just master 1 agent. Yay. Ardiis. Demon1. Where they are now? They are aim gods, but aiming is not gonna help you now, not when Valorant is already 4 years old. We now see the rise of Tenz, who now plays kayo, omen. Leo & Chron are the reason why FNC is gods last season. Even forsaken, who has played almost every agent in VCT. They had their aim and mech to help them survive, but they also flex. for me right now if u want to success at being pro player you need to flex. THe era of one trick oping agent is over

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the clip that went round a little bit on Twitter a couple weeks ago where Alecks said they have a rule that one player in a series is allowed to say ‘fuck it, I wanna play reyna’ if they want and they just have to go with it. Reyna will always be trolling even when ur this aggressive, no?

From every matches in masters shanghai, you can see how many times something dies first and got no trades.. I don't know if that his desicion or teamplan but the plan is just so bad, maybe it works 1-2 rounds but 80% of the times you can just see something dies first and got no trades mostly in defending.. i feel like their comms is lacking and maybe something didnt call for his play.. he can do calls like "hey play together here, play together there" but no, he mostly dies alone in one place with no trades. And you also can see how many time prx lose cuz they got lined up shot by 100T. I feel like they just say "lets peek together" didnt explain what's one gonna do. One should call like "peek together I'll swing wide" or "peek together ill hold close"

lets hope they get better in the Champion

From playing insane at Champs to now this…

can you explain how TH threw a 11-2 half against G2?

Before they were coordinated aggression now it’s just lucky aggression relying on hero plays now.

I mean if the whole start centered in W gaming the opponents can just counter strat them with just bait strats, PRX will come to them.

on the other hand, will Jingg go to military service this year or he wont join military service because his health condition ?

These are what PRX fans has been thinking from the start of this year, but summed up in 17 minutes. Thank you TMV

I don't think it's worth to analyze a team that just didn't play like they usually play at all. Best comparison is SEN after Madrid. They just looked boomed and didn't play together at all.

They were re-integrating jing into the line up and trying to make him as comfortable as possible by making him call and play at his own pace. So, obviously they are not operating at their best?