“We will be back here again, Ready to win the whole thing” Team Heretics eliminated from VALORANT Masters Madrid

Ganesh Jadhav

18 Feb, 2024, 17:36

Last updated: 10 Apr, 2025, 09:03

In the second elimination series of VALORANT Masters Madrid, Paper Rex took on Team Heretics. This was the first time the teams have officially taken on each other.

Team Heretics 1-2 Paper Rex:

The game was a brawl, with the two teams with amazing mechanics just taking down each other.

Sunset’s first half concluded with both teams with six rounds each. Paper Rex’s proactive defense came about in the second half to secure them a 13-10 win.

Team Heretics secured a 7-5 lead on Lotus' first half and despite the string of rounds from Paper Rex answered back to secure a 13-10 win, to force a third map.

Split was the bloodiest brawl. Team Heretics’ shutdown the Paper Rex attack. Fortunately, Paper Rex came back to equalize the scoreline. Once again, Paper Rex’s aggressive defense and f0rsaken’s mechanical prowess took down Team Heretics. They won the series 2-1, winning the final map 13-7.

Talking about the Team Heretics’ Neon pick and how it works well for the team, Alecks said:

“It’s part of the problem, but then the fact is Heretics is a well-drilled team, you watch them play Sunset, you watch them play Lotus, they really know what they are doing. When a team is that well-drilled and they are the only team to use Neon, they have everything figured out and we have to adapt to it.

Sometimes the game plan goes wrong, I thought on Lotus, because we have Cypher, it should be slightly easier for our Cypher to pick him[Neon] off. But they played around Cypher extremely well.”

The increased pace from both squads can also lead to an increase in the overall tempo of the game, which might lead to mistakes and narrow sightedness.

“I mean of course, I won’t say that Heretics are an incredibly fast team, I think they have fast strats and they use it incredibly well. We are the same, I don’t think we are as fast as last year. We enjoy this pace, you know, It’s a good pace for us, we came out on top in the end. It was a really fun game for us.”

With the loss, Team Heretics’ first Global Event expedition concludes on a sad note. Talking about the experience of the team, Neilzinho, the coach said:

“I think playing in front of the home crowd at a major event was insane for everyone. The fans are crazy, they supported us through the good times, the bad times and it was just insane to be able to hear it. We are sorry we couldn’t go all the way but we showed in the game today and against Sentinels that we have not played against poor teams, Sentinels are a potential winner and Paper Rex were Valorant Champions 2023 grand finalists.

We did not play against bad teams and it was a huge experience for everyone here. It was the first major tournament for everyone here, everyone’s learned a lot from here. We are only going to improve from here. We fixed a lot of our issues from the Sentinels game overnight, that was in less than 24 hours. Give us another three months and I am sure we will be back here again, ready to win the whole thing.”

Paper Rex will play Karmine Corp today for the Playoff spot. 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.

Featured Image Credits: Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games