Paper Rex F0rsaken: “We played a double duelist and we’re really confident, especially with Jinggg and my aim”

Even after the loss to DRX, Jason "f0rsakeN" Susanto and his teammates were in good spirits. The loss to their APAC scrim partners, DRX, was disappointing in the moment but the team recognized they could play much better VALORANT.

“Personally, for my individual, this is not my best. This is not me today, but on teamwork, we need to fix a little bit because it seems our tactics are really like, I don't know why maybe because this is not like our day and DRX played really good”

Of course, Paper Rex went on to eliminate The Guard a mere 24 hours later. Extending their tournament life and sending the younger, more inexperienced Guard team home after two games. Entering the matchup, The Guard hadn’t faced any compositions remotely similar to the Paper Rex double-Duelist and the lack of familiarity played a major hand in the result.

“As you can see, we played a double Duelist and we’re really confident, especially with Jinggg and my aim. We’re just confident in our individual skill as well”

Running against the meta compositions of more emphasis on Initiators and flashing is a risky decision. Paper Rex being the one team that decidedly goes against most meta picks. Opting for agents like Reyna and Yoru, who both have a pick rate at VCT Masters Reykjavik of under five percent. 

Now, facing their scrim partners in their first tournament match was an unfortunate draw. One of the main strengths of unorthodox compositions is the element of surprise. Against DRX, Paper Rex weren’t able to exploit the Yoru pick on Bind, while the Reyna worked out great on Haven.

“Korean teams really like to counter-strat a lot,” said F0rsaken. ”One of the tactics is I like to TP, CT from showers and they didn’t really go for it and I think we lose some fight aim, so yeah, I think that's the mistakes on map Bind”

In many instances, F0rsaken would run a diversion play, trying to fake players holding specific positions. Although Yoru has many viable options to fake opponents, his gatecrash has the drawback of teleporting back to the original tether. So while F0rsaken could clear large areas of the map quickly and run fakes using Yoru’s abilities, once that ended, he was often caught out of position.

The Reyna comps, especially with the flash, it really affects us because of the way we take A long control (on Haven), as you guys can see, when we are defending, those plays kinda annoy the enemy”

It’s clear Paper Rex don’t feel the immense pressure of the VCT Reykjavik stage. In both the loss to DRX and the win over The Guard, the team appeared loose on player cams. There were plenty of laughs and joking around on their side. In a tight game, the team was simply enjoying the moment.

“I didn't get pressured too much because we really enjoyed the game even though we lost. We’re just trying to enjoy the game, not really think about the result”

Furthermore, I asked Paper Rex F0rsaken about the Benedict “Benkai” Tan costume walkouts and he confirmed it was his idea alone. “It was his idea. His own decision. He bought it from here, the costume”

Paper Rex will face G2 Esports in an elimination match for a spot in the Lower Bracket Semifinals.

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