Gen.G became the first team from the Asia-Pacific region to win a VALORANT Champion Tour international event after defeating the EMEA representatives, Team Heretics, at Masters Shanghai.
This triumph is particularly significant given their recent near-miss at Masters Madrid just two months ago where Gen.G reached the finals but fell agonizingly short, losing 3-2 to North American representatives Sentinels.
The narrative of Sentinels’ dramatic comeback overshadowed Gen.G’s dreams, but this time in Shanghai, Gen.G were determined to write a different ending.
After qualifying for the playoffs with a perfect score, Gen.G decimated EMEA teams one by one in the knockout matches, starting with fan-favorites Fnatic in the first round, then G2 Esports in the semis, and, finally, Team Heretics in the grand final.
Having won the upper bracket final, Gen.G headed into the last match of the tournament with a map veto advantage. The APAC representatives maximized the damage they could do to their opponents by banning Bind and Sunset to pick Breeze first, thus taking out of the map pool two of the best maps for TH while selecting a map that they would not be very comfortable with.
On the other side, TH headed into the Masters Shanghai Grand Final having played three consecutive days in a row with little time to practice both Breeze and Split, something TH’s coach highlighted in the post-match press conference. While emphasizing Gen.G’s “incredible” performance, the coach noted that the lack of practice affected the final results.
And as planned, Gen.G won the first map, crushing TH for 13-6 on Breeze. But the EMEA team fought back in the next two games, reaching the match point by winning on IceBox and Ascent, both for 13-9. In the post-match press conference, Gen.G coach said the players had lost confidence in the two maps won by TH, but they agreed to head into Lotus with “extra confidence” and promised themselves they wouldn’t let the trophy slip from their hands once more.
Then, Gen.G forced a fifth map by winning Lotus in a dominating fashion, giving TH no more than four rounds to their name.
The final map kicked off looking eerily similar to Breeze and Lotus, with Gen.G picking up the pistol round and dominating round after round for the whole first half of the game. After switching sides at 9-3, Gen.G just had to deny the curse to get the APAC region its first title.
They won the pistol, converted the bonus the rounds after and closed the match with a clear 13-3 win, making history for their region and etching their name into the winners of VCT international events.
While no team has officially qualified for VCT Champions this year yet, having won Masters Shanghai and closed Masters Madrid in second place, Gen.G should have enough Championship points to make a stand for a second title on their home turf at VCT Champions this August.
