The most-viewed VALORANT esports matches of 2025

We had a great year of VALORANT esports in 2025. There were many iconic moments, clutch plays, and steamrolls that happened across all of the events. However, these matches stood out from the rest, at least according to the audience. Here are the most popular VALORANT esports matches of 2025, and some interesting facts about them.

Unlike the most popular League of Legends esports matches of 2025, the most-watched team for VALORANT isn't extremely dominant. We have Paper Rex matches leading the list at five matchups, with Fnatic hot on their trail at four matches.

Below is a graphic from Esports Charts outlining the top ten most popular VALORANT esports matches for 2025, sorted by peak viewers.

It's also worth noting that Wolves Esports is the only VCT CN team to make the list. Their presence in this list means that all regions are represented!

Another interesting point is that the list is comprised solely of inter-regional matches. Paper Rex versus Fnatic does show up twice, though.

The lower bracket match between MIBR and DRX is 10th on this list, but only by a small margin. Places 8th-10th are all within <1% of each other.

The elimination match in Champions 2025 between Pacific's DRX and Americas' MIBR garnered 680k concurrent viewers. Erick "aspas" Santos put on a clinic this match, recording a whopping 76/51/8 KDA across three maps. He was +25 by the end of the match!

Unfortunately for him, DRX' cohesion and team play reigned supreme, and MIBR was eliminated. DRX would go on to make it to the lower bracket final, which made it to number 9 on this list.

This was an incredibly unexpected win for the South Korean organization.

After their win against MIBR, DRX swept Paper Rex and eliminated their fellow Pacific brothers to become the only team from the region in the top three.

Meanwhile, Fnatic were freshly swept by NRG in the upper bracket final. They put a stop to DRX' trophy hopes convincingly as they took this best-of-five. This also involved 13-3 and 13-4 wins for Fnatic, proving they deserved the rematch against NRG.

This is quite the unexpected entry, but when the dominance of Gen.G, especially in the first half of the year, and this being G2's next event after falling in the Masters Bangkok grand final, it starts to make a little more sense.

Gen.G Esports placed second in VCT Pacific Stage 1. Rex Regum Qeon, the champions of that split, were already eliminated by Fnatic at this point. Many still believed in the W Gaming brought by Paper Rex, who were thriving in the upper bracket, but many Pacific fans had their eyes trained on Gen.G.

Many believed them to be a strong team - they had a flawless Swiss Stage and beat Fnatic in the first round of playoffs, after all. However, after being swept by Wolves and being sent to the lower bracket, the belief began to waver. Pit against G2, the 1st seed from Americas, they buckled and got eliminated, 1-2.

From here, the Paper Rex domination of the most-viewed VALORANT esports matches in 2025 begins.

Lowest on the list, but with a considerable gap from the previous entry, is the PRX vs G2 quarters match in this year's Champs.

In 2024, these two organizations met twice, and both matches went in favor of G2. For 2025, the story flipped. The first time G2 and PRX clashed this year was in the quarters of Masters Toronto, and G2 was only a stepping stone for PRX' eventual trophy lift.

This, during Champs, was the second time, and the script was still the same. Nathan "leaf" Orf led G2, but his efforts were not enough, and they fell in three maps, 1-2.

After Paper Rex' win against G2, they got sent to the lower bracket by Fnatic. Here, they faced Team Heretics.

Historically, this matchup has been heavily PRX-favored, and this time was no different. PRX showed they were the superior team across the board, but they would get eliminated in their next match by fellow Pacific reps, DRX.

Wolves Esports went above and beyond the expectations of both VCT CN fans and the general viewers alike. They blazed through teams like RRQ and Gen.G in the playoffs, and people were eager to see them go against their third Pacific team in a row.

As you may already know, the W Gaming proved unstoppable in this series as PRX swept WOL, 2-0, sending the Chinese team to the lower bracket. There, Fnatic would eliminate them, but Paper Rex still lifted the trophy.

After Paper Rex' win against G2 Esports in Champs (see #7 of this list), they advanced to the UB semis, going up against Fnatic.

On paper, this should have been, at the very least, Fnatic-favored. However, with Domagoj "Doma" Fancev standing in for Emir "Alfajer" Beder, this was not the case. The pre-match odds for a Fnatic win even went as high as 3.18 on some esports betting sites.

Fnatic still took the win, 2-1, even with their stand-in.

Nope, you're not seeing double. Another Paper Rex vs. Fnatic is on this list as we break the top three and 1 million concurrent viewers.

This best-of-five was a treat to VALROANT fans around the world, especially those who have been waiting for Paper Rex to lift an international trophy. After four maps, they finally did it, with their newest rookie pickup, Patrick "PatMen" Mendoza in tow.

This is the only entry in the top ten from Masters Bangkok.

Masters Bangkok was meant to be G2's after a dominant showing. For the whole event, they only dropped one match: the Swiss Stage game against EDward Gaming.

On the other hand, T1 had to go through the lower bracket for their finals ticket. After five maps and two overtimes, T1 still took the win.

The stat lines for this game wer bizarre. First, Alexander "jawgemo" Mor had a total of 103 kills across five maps, with two of his teammates hot on his heels at 94 and 92. For T1, they claimed the match win with all members having negative K-D.

Finally, the most-viewed VALORANT esports match of 2025 was the Champions 2025 grand final between NRG and Fnatic.

This was an amazing best-of-five that brought pride to NRG fans and heartbreak to Fnatic's. Among the many notable achievements throughout the year and even in this event, NRG's win to cap off their 2025 year also made Ethan "Ethan" Arnold the first and only two-time VALORANT world champion.

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