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Absolute Cinema: Everything You May Have Missed From VALORANT Champions 2025 Opening Days
VALORANT Champions Paris 2025 has been live for a mere 4 days and already it feels like so much has occurred.
From prevailing narratives to incredible performances and shocking upsets, here is everything you may have missed from the first 4 days of Champions Paris.
Pacific and EMEA On Top
Following the round of opening matches for all teams, Pacific and EMEA have emerged as the predominant regions currently, which 3 teams each qualifying to the Winners match of their respective groups with the exceptions being RRQ and Team Liquid. For Pacific, this is especially poignant, given the region’s overall international success in 2025, with T1 and Paper Rex lifting respective first trophies for their organizations this year.
For EMEA, the region has looked its most competitive since the league’s inception back in 2023, with Team Vitality setting the pace early in the year with a Kickoff victory followed by a top 4 placement in Bangkok. Fnatic followed this up with a Lower Bracket run to the Grand Finals of Toronto and repeated that at the EWC less than 3 weeks later alongside Team Heretics in the Grand Finals.
While it’s extremely early to call the success of any region after a single round of games, its undeniably a great start for these two regions. EMEA has not lifted a Champions trophy since 2021 with Acend, while Pacific has never lifted one despite the number of promising rosters over the years.
China 0-4 in Opening Bouts
Despite China’s roaring success last year with the victory of EDward Gaming in Grand Finals of Champions 2024 Seoul, the region has not found as much success internationally – however, they’ve come close all year.
An early 3rd placing by EDG at Bangkok did raise hopes but was swiftly squashed by roster issues the following month which led to the departure of one of the core Champions-winning members. Wolves would be the next team to raise hopes for the region in Toronto, making it all the way to the Lower Finals before falling to Fnatic.
Here at Champions 2025, the Chinese teams closest to success have been EDward Gaming and Dragon Ranger Gaming. EDG came into Champions 2025 looking to prove something as the defending champions. Despite a lesser form compared to 2024, EDG put up an initially strong performance against NRG. Unfortunately, an 11-2 lead on Abyss proved insufficient to close out the map and NRG not only snatched victory there but also took the series in two after a hard-fought Corrode.
DRG, the talk of the town with newcomer Maximilian “Demon1” Mazanov, proved unable to overcome T1 in their opening series. Given the short amount of time the former Champions winner has had with his new roster, it proved surprising then that the series went to overtime in both maps.
Despite the overall scoreline, the series was a lot closer than perhaps many. T1’s form continues to look somewhat shaky, with heroics from individuals still not fully disguising the middling performance of the team as a whole. DRG’s core on the other hand look strong despite missing arguably one of their best players in Ilya “vo0kashu” Ushakov – making it all the more of a pity that we won’t get to see DRG make a proper run at things in Champions 2025 with their full lineup.
Demon1 Leads Viewership in Opening Series
Demon1’s return to the Champions stage after 2 years was met with global interest and attention. The former Champions MVP was announced a week ago that he would be joining Dragon Ranger Gaming and join them in Paris – an announcement that caught the attention of the wider community. Despite the lesser name of the organization themselves, the bold move to field a player of Demon1’s reputation succeeded in capturing the eyes of the world. Everyone wanted to see Demon1 return to form and perhaps, recapture the glory that North America enjoyed in 2023 – however faint of a reality that might be.
For that reason, it comes as a surprise to few then that DRG’s opening series against T1 garnered the highest peak viewers at 540,000, narrowly edging out even PRX vs XLG, the opening series of the tournament.
Another notable mention in the top 5 series thus far with highest peak viewers include yesterday’s series between RRQ and Fnatic, an electric performance between the two teams. RRQ’s clear desire to make something of themselves internationally and Fnatic’s veteran-filled lineup made for an exciting matchup to close out the first round of games – making it my personal favorite series of the tournament thus far as well.
Rounding out the top 5 are the NRG/EDG and the MIBR/BLG series. While the former series started out fairly bleak for North America, NRG’s resurgence into the map and series did a lot to fan audience excitement for the comeback. Meanwhile the MIBR-BLG series was a welcome sight for Brazilian fans. MIBR’s form coming into the game saw them trounce the Chinese 1st seed 13-2 on Map 1 before a closer affair on Map 2, ultimately securing MIBR a closer step towards Playoffs qualification.
Biggest Takeaways from Round 1
Paper Rex look in Prime Form
The W gaming train appears to be running at full steam with Paper Rex taking down XLG in their opening match of Champions. While they’ve yet to be tested against a more seasoned team, their next match against GIANTX should be the most telling of what we can expect from the Toronto Champions.
GIANTX Deliver a Surprising Uppercut
Fans may have been shocked on Day 1 when after a clean Game 1 went the way of Sentinels, Games 2 and 3 were nowhere near as successful. However, for EMEA fans, this was nothing new. Over Stage 2, GIANTX have cultivated a new reputation as the comeback kids, regularly losing Game 1’s with little resistance only to mount incredible comebacks on the following maps. The secret to it, appears to be in their confidence in their map pool. Now GIANTX are poised to qualify for their first ever Playoffs. The remaining obstacle in their way? Paper Rex.
MIBR Stun With Strong Form
Fans were unsure coming into Champions 2025 if MIBR truly deserved to be among the elite teams in attendance. Given their performance in Stage 2 and manner of qualification, it was somewhat understandable. However, the Brazilian powerhouse mounted a surprisingly powerful performance to kick off their Champions run, taking down BLG in rather swift fashion. Aspas was noticeably the standout performer for his team but MIBR as a whole looked rejuvenated with confidence. Time will tell if this newfound strength can carry them to a Playoffs run.
Team Liquid a Series From Elimination
After incredible hype and excitement surrounding the new Team Liquid, from winning VCT EMEA Stage 2 and their overall strong performance across 2025, their performance against DRX certainly left many wanting. From uncharacteristic fumbles to less-than performances, they did not look like the team they were just weeks ago in Berlin. Now faced against EDG, one of these two teams are set to exit Champions 2025 without a single series win – a gutting reality to face.
Team Heretics Took Down the Raid Boss
Coming into Champions 2025, two teams were on everyone’s minds as heavy favourites. One was Paper Rex. The other, was G2 Esports. Triple-time winner of VCT Americas this year, G2 looked like the team to beat. With immaculately played VALORANT, they are considered by many as the current gold standard for how the game should be played.
Which makes Heretics 2-0 victory over them all the more impressive. G2 may be the kings of the domestic league, but their international appearances have been frustrating in 2025. One grand finals appearance back in Bangkok, falling short to T1 is all they really have to show for their efforts. While they’re still likely to qualify for Playoffs, an early chink in their armor has already shown itself.
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Featured Image Credit: Colin Young Wolff/Riot Games
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