[EXCLUSIVE] “Creativity versus creativity” Paper Rex F0rsaKeN anticipates hot matchup against Karmine Corp

Placed into the Lower Bracket at Madrid after a close series loss against EDward Gaming, Paper Rex had less than 48 hours to shift gears if they looked to take one of the remaining Playoffs spot. After their hard-fought series against Heretics (which went the distance as well), Strafe Esports had the opportunity to speak with Jason "f0rsakeN" Susanto.

[Interviewer] First of all, I just wanted to ask you. You’ve had a hard series against EDG two days ago I believe. And then now you’ve played against Heretics. Again, it was another 3-map series, hard series both. So, how are you feeling? How’s the team feeling after playing like 2 best of 3 that, you know, went pretty deep I would say?

Yeah, it’s really tough for us because we have a new member, Monyet, and we have to make him comfortable to us. And then somehow, I think yeah, I just really love to play against everyone here.

[Interviewer] I also wanted to kind of as well because I noticed during the final map of EDG on the Split game, the vibes weren’t the usual Paper Rex you know? Where you guys were looking like your usual selves in terms of having fun. How was the mood like coming into this Heretics series? Were you guys feeling better?

Yeah, definitely awesome.

[Interviewer] Was there anything different or was it just yourself, you know, new day, new try? Or did you guys actually talk it out after the EDG loss?

I mean yeah, after the EDG loss, we just talked and today we like go in, you know, like no matter if you win, we just play our game you know? I think that’s the main reason why we’re like so happy today.

[Interviewer] Alecks also spoke about this and you’ve mentioned it a couple times as well. On the difficulties integrating Monet into the team. You can’t really fit him as a 1-1 with Jinggg right?  You can’t put him on Jinggg’s roles and expect quite the same results obviously. But you’ve mentioned that you believe he will develop into a really great player. So, what’s kind of the current setback to reaching his full potential? Is it just synergy?

I think it’s about agent composition. I think I realized that for this tournament, I think Monyet is really good at surviving in smokes I would say. So I would say he’s really good on Controllers, smokers and maybe in the future we will move him to some controller I would say. But I don’t know.

[Interviewer] I want to ask more specifically about today’s game as well because this is the second time you’ve played Sunset and you’re one of the only teams can plays Sage on this map. This is a two-part question. First of all, are you guys feeling really comfortable on Sunset? Because you guys looked pretty good today on the map.

Yeah, I mean, actually we have like a lot of plans that we haven’t shown yet in the tournament. I think I really have confidence with this map. Maybe it’s one of our best maps I would say, because it’s so hard playing against Sage and KAY/O.

[Interviewer] And the second part of it, because as I mentioned just now, you were the only team that likes pulling out the Sage. I remember last year you pulled it out on Lotus and you had these crazy walls that, you know, boost them on A-main and just get the early pick, you know go C. So do you guys have a special sort of affinity with Sage, that you guys think you see some value in Sage that other teams don’t?

Yeah, I mean for Sage. I think a lot of big value I would say because it’s really annoying to play games with like slow and the wall. This wall is like really important, especially in tournaments. It’s like if you aggress us, it’s like hard you know, if you play Sage and the walls. Yeah, we just like find a lot of creativity. You can say like Tik Tok walls, I would say somehow on Sunset, it works you know.

[Interviewer] Were there any difficulties adapting to Heretics’ pacing? Because they’re one of the only teams to run Neon so obviously the pacing is going to be very different from every other team you’ve scrimmed.

At first, it was like, especially on Lotus, it was very hard actually to adapt because they were like really fast. Like for example, they are taking A, but then suddenly, the Neon is at C you know? So, at first, it was like hard but now we kind of know how to like counter them after this match.

[Interviewer] Asking specifically for the Split game, first of all, this was as you said, your debut game on Raze. Did you enjoy playing Raze? Is this something we can see you more on?

I mean, enjoy, probably. Yes, because I’m kind of flexible. I can play like anything, but it was really tough. I kind of felt for the first time playing Raze as an attacker, especially with the comp that I fought against. Which was really, really hard, but it was fun to play Raze. I like it a lot.

[Interviewer] How did you feel when Alex was calling those two timeouts? Was there anything running through your head specifically that you kind of said to the rest of your team?

Alekcs was like telling us what to do, that I have to satchel ramp and stuff, but then he had to do the second timeout because I kind of like forgot what to do, you know, because it’s my first time Raze and like, ok, so after the second time, we just listened to Alecks and we just did our plan.

[Interviewer] Something definitely looked a lot more comfortable with today’s composition as opposed to the triple duelist one. Did he feel less comfortable in that? He was able to shine more with this team composition.

Probably you can say so, because I felt like this map, I mean, for every map, maybe, I think we need like Initiator to find information and I think that’s the reason why we like changed back, because of that.

[Interviewer] You guys will be facing Karmine Core next, so what’s your expectations for playing against them? D4v4i kind of talked about trap plays that you guys will be expecting. But what are you personally expecting out of this coming match-up?

Well, when I see how they play, maybe like they play […] Sentinels and then Karmine is like, the playstyle is like similar like Paper Rex playstyle you know? I can see how they changed. I’m surprised that Karmine Corp is a team that plays really fast and has traps. I think we’ll be expecting a lot of traps by them. But somehow, I would say it’s like similar playstyles, maybe we can keep up still.

[Interviewer] Would I be right in saying that you guys are one of the few teams that would be well-suited to play against KC? Because they are also a team that likes playing Yoru on a lot of maps. And you are a player that is very familiar with Yoru. Is this a matchup that you’re comfortable with?

Maybe. Because I think it’s more like creativity versus creativity. I think it will be exciting. I can’t wait to fight against them.

 

Paper Rex will be playing for their tournament lives again today, facing off against Karmine Corp for one of the final spots in VCT Masters Madrid Playoffs.

You can follow Valorant Champions Tour X/Twitter for all updates on the upcoming fixture. You can also follow Strafe for upcoming fixtures, press conference coverage and more.

Follow the Strafe App YouTube for all the upcoming VALORANT Masters Madrid Press conferences.

Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

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