On Sunday night, RRQ kept their playoff dreams alive in week 8 of Valorant Champions Tour 2023: Pacific League after defeating Talon Esports, which eliminated them from the top six position competition.
Prior to week 8, RRQ and Talon were both in the last four of the Pacific League standings. RRQ had struggled against top teams, racking up four losses and three wins. Meanwhile, Talon had only won two out of seven matches.
Playing in Split for Game 1, RRQ seemed to be the better side early on, effectively winning the first three rounds. However, Talon was unfazed and went on to sweep RRQ round after round. Talon’s Patiphan “Patt” Chaiwong, who played Jett, was in the spotlight with his fantastic 1v1 skills. He took advantage of every narrow gap and caught every RRQ player by surprise. Patt dominated the kill tally with 17 kills and a headshot accuracy of 26.8% during that match. Talon won Game 1 with a fantastic score of 13-3.
RRQ fought back in Game 2 on the Ascent map. This time, RRQ Captain David “xffero” Monangin came out as MVP. Starting with the moment in the third round when he got an Ace with only 1 HP, he stepped up by dominating the kills in the following rounds along with RRQ’s pistol god Hagai “Lmemore” Kristen Yesyurun. RRQ equalized in Game 2 with a score of 13-4.
In the final game, RRQ and Talon were chasing each other in the first 14 rounds. Saibani “fl1pzjder” Rahmad became the key player for RRQ as soon as the team switched to the attacker side. Even though Patt again made it difficult for RRQ to dominate the game, the solid teamwork from the RRQ team ultimately outperformed his individual brilliance. RRQ won the final game with a score of 13-7.
With 2 victories and 6 defeats, RRQ moved up to fifth place and eliminated Talon Esports from VCT Pacific 2023, which stayed in seventh and went down as the first Southeast Asian representative to be eliminated from the tournament. Nevertheless, RRQ still need to grab one last win against the heavyweight Paper Rex this evening to advance.
