It’s elimination time for some of the biggest names at VCT Masters Tokyo as the tournament continues in the playoff bracket. One of VALORANT’s most experienced teams ended up leaving the tournament today, with DRX falling to America’s NRG.
After a tough end to the season that resulted in both of these star teams finishing second in their respective regions, this matchup came earlier in the tournament than expected. Despite a rough go just a day earlier, NRG seemed to fix all of their mistakes and took DRX out 2-0.
The star player of the match today was Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks, who put up a 268 average combat score across the two maps. After a costly mistake in NRG’s match yesterday, he seemed to have bounced back, highlighted by an incredible Jett play to seal the deal in the game’s final moments.
“I think we just all played bad yesterday,” ardiis said in the post-match press conference. “I think we needed this quick 2-0, and this was the perfect result.”
The players of DRX and NRG are no strangers to each other, having played multiple best-of-fives previously in international tournaments. In 2022, the NRG’s group of core players, formerly playing for OpTic, also knocked DRX out of Champions Istanbul, and forced them into the lower bracket at Masters Copenhagen and Masters Reykjavík.
The teams started off on Pearl, DRX’s map pick, but a map that NRG don’t show a considerable weakness on either.
In the first half, it seemed like DRX had their energy back after a rough day for the team yesterday with their loss to longtime rivals Paper Rex. Today, DRX’s teamwork looked great on Pearl. The players were supporting each other with each engagement and held each other up despite any individual weaknesses.
Things seemed to be looking up for DRX after an 8-4 first half where they started on defense. Austin “crashies” Roberts seemed awfully quiet on NRG, while Goo “Rb” Sangmin on the other side had an 18-6 KDA at halftime.
After the halftime break, the momentum solidified in the other direction. Ardiis, assisted by Sam “s0m” Oh with an operator in hand, was able to turn the tides for the American team.
In round 23, even the VCT production was confused after DRX took an extremely close round down to the wire. After NRG eliminated the team, DRX’s post-plant utility effectively delayed the spike defuse to the point of no return. Upon the last player of DRX falling, music played on the broadcast to signify the map was over, when, in fact, DRX had delayed just enough to make it 12-11, just one round away from overtime.
Unfortunately for the Korean team, NRG came together in a close final round to fully overcome their first-half deficit and win Pearl 13-11.
The next map of the series was Haven, where both of these teams are known to have excellent strategies. Yet, there seems to be a curse looming over DRX on this map, as they’ve lost to NRG/OpTic several times here. Today was no exception.
Haven was a masterclass from NRG. They read DRX’s strategies effortlessly on their defense and had most of the gunfights go in their direction as well. Most impactful for NRG again was ardiis, who continued to show that the mistakes against Fnatic just a day earlier weren’t stopping him.
In a pre-recorded interview shown on the broadcast with NRG’s in-game leader Pujan “FiNESSE” Mehta, he said that DRX are the “kings of discipline,” and defeating them comes down to countering that.
In a final round symbolic of this sentiment, ardiis succeeded in what might be his flashiest play of the tournament so far, sneaking around DRX up into A heaven. After the Korean team lost track of the Jett player’s whereabouts, he demolished them in a blink of an eye.
NRG will now wait for their next opponent in the lower bracket. Their next game will be on June 20 at 10pm CT.
Published: Jun 18, 2023 10:14 am