Benedict “Benkai” Tan, one of Paper Rex’s best VALORANT players, said in an interview with the Geographically Challenged podcast that he isn’t expecting too much from his team at VCT Masters Berlin.
Paper Rex are one of the two SEA teams that secured a spot in Berlin via the SEA VCT: Stage Three Challengers Playoffs. They went unbeaten through most of the event, taking down CBT Gaming, BOOM Esports, and Bren Esports in the upper bracket before losing to the latter in the grand finals. Benkai was their second-best player in the Southeast Asian tournament, statistically speaking, averaging 228.6 ACS, 1.31 K/D, and 144.7 ADR, according to VLR.gg’s statistics.
But Benkai said he watches a lot of VALORANT and feels that they’re not ready to play against teams from other regions yet. “I expect us to do fairly OK but I’m also half expecting us to get fisted over there,” the 24-year-old said.
This has been a classic problem for minor regions in almost every esport. Teams like Paper Rex don’t get to practice against squads from North America or Europe, arguably the strongest regions, all the time. Benkai said Paper Rex won’t boot camp in Europe ahead of VCT Masters Berlin and they don’t have plans to stick around in the country after the competition is done, but they will get the chance to scrim against the likes of Sentinels, G2, and 100 Thieves when they arrive in Germany.
It’s unclear whether Paper Rex will have its full team in Berlin, too. Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee, one of the team’s players, said yesterday that his travel pass hasn’t been approved yet, explaining that every Malaysian citizen needs the document to exit the country.
VCT Masters Berlin starts Sept. 10.
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