By Marcus Webb, Editor-in-Chief
VCT Masters Santiago 2026 ended with a result that nobody outside the Pacific region predicted and most within it barely considered: Nongshim RedForce, a team that was playing Premier two years ago, swept Paper Rex 3-0 to lift the trophy and rewrite every assumption baked into the early Valorant tier list for 2026. The question is no longer who won Santiago. It is what Santiago revealed about the power structure heading into Stage 1, Masters London, and ultimately Champions Shanghai.
The Ascension Precedent Is No Longer Theoretical
There is a tendency in competitive Valorant to treat Ascension graduates as story arcs rather than genuine contenders. Nongshim RedForce just dismantled that framing in the most emphatic way possible. Their run through the upper bracket was not a streak of fortunate matchups or bracket luck. They swept Gentle Mates 2-0, edged G2 Esports 2-1 in a series that went to overtime on Split, then shut down the reigning Champions winners NRG 2-0 in the Upper Final before completing the tournament with a clean 3-0 over Paper Rex.
That is four series at an international LAN without a single loss. And this was not the kind of unbeaten run where every match teeters on the edge. Outside of the G2 series and the opening map of the Grand Final on Corrode, where Paper Rex held an 8-4 halftime lead only to watch Nongshim rattle off nine of the next twelve rounds, the Korean squad was comfortably in control. The 13-4 on Split and 13-3 on Abyss that followed were not closers. They were statements.
What makes this more significant than a single trophy is what it proves structurally. Nongshim cleared Pacific Ascension in 2025, won VCT Pacific Kickoff undefeated, and then took Masters Santiago without dropping a series. Rb, the team’s IGL, last played internationally at Champions Istanbul 2022 with DRX, where he finished third. Nearly four years later, he returned with a roster that most analysts described as promising but raw. The “raw” part never materialized on stage. Dambi, the Neon specialist who earned tournament MVP, was not a player teams could plan around because his off-angle aggression created problems that compound rather than isolate. Xross finished the Grand Final with a 1.57 VLR rating and a +32 kill differential, numbers that belong in a highlight reel, not a debut international event.
The implication for the broader ecosystem is clear. If a team can move from Premier to an international trophy in roughly eighteen months, the argument that partnership-era rosters hold a structural advantage by default is weaker than it has ever been. It does not mean every Ascension team will replicate this path, but it does mean the ceiling is no longer theoretical. It is proven.
NRG and the Weight of Defending a Championship
Coming into Santiago as Champions 2025 winners and Americas’ third seed, NRG had a peculiar position. They were simultaneously the most decorated team in the field and one that had to grind through the Swiss Stage just to reach playoffs. That grind shaped their tournament arc in ways that mattered.
NRG’s Swiss Stage was not clean. They beat Xi Lai Gaming comfortably, then needed a full three maps to get past Paper Rex in the 1-0 round, and ultimately secured their playoff spot with a win over Team Liquid in the decider. Once in the bracket, they showed the kind of gear shift that championship-caliber rosters possess: a 2-1 over BBL Esports and a convincing 2-0 sweep of Paper Rex in the Upper Semifinal suggested NRG had found their form at exactly the right time.
Then Nongshim happened. The Upper Final was a masterclass in preparation versus reputation. NRG’s map pool, particularly their Bind and Abyss, had been strong all tournament, but Nongshim neutralized both with disciplined utility usage and mid-round reads that suggested an intimate familiarity with NRG’s tendencies. Brawk and mada had moments, but moments do not beat systems, and Nongshim’s system was airtight.
NRG’s lower bracket run restored some credibility. They needed to beat Paper Rex again to reach the Grand Final, and this time PRX was a different animal. The 3-1 loss in the Lower Final was not a collapse so much as a confirmation that Paper Rex had decoded what NRG wanted to do by virtue of having played them three times in a single tournament. The defining rivalry of Masters Santiago, PRX vs NRG, played out across three separate series and generated over 500,000 peak concurrent viewers each time. But by the third meeting, diminishing returns had set in for NRG’s playbook.
The broader takeaway: NRG remain a dangerous team, but the aura of Champions 2025 will not carry them through a meta that rewards adaptation speed over established patterns. Ethan and skuba are still elite individuals, but the coaching staff will need to answer harder questions heading into Stage 1 about how this team generates unpredictability.
Paper Rex: The Eternal Contender Question
There is no way to write about Santiago without confronting the Paper Rex paradox. This is a team that has now reached four international Grand Finals, qualified for 12 out of 13 international events, and has never been eliminated before the final weekend of any tournament they have attended. By almost every measure of sustained competitive excellence, they are the most consistent franchise in Valorant history.
And yet the trophy case from 2026 remains empty.
Paper Rex’s Santiago run was, in many ways, their most impressive lower bracket performance to date. After PRX lost to NRG 0-2 in the Upper Semifinal, they won three consecutive elimination matches: All Gamers 2-1, G2 Esports 2-1, and then the revenge series against NRG 3-1 in the Lower Final that drew the tournament’s peak viewership of 752,117 concurrent viewers. That is not the trajectory of a team in decline. It is the trajectory of a team that responds to adversity with intensity.
The Grand Final, though, exposed the gap that exists between resilience and superiority when the opponent has had five days of rest and preparation. Nongshim’s 8-4 halftime deficit on Corrode looked like a potential crack, and in previous tournaments it might have been. But the comeback, nine rounds out of the next twelve in the second half, sucked the energy out of the series before it ever reached a competitive equilibrium. The subsequent 13-4 and 13-3 on Split and Abyss were less about Paper Rex failing and more about Nongshim being prepared at a level that made PRX’s improvisation irrelevant.
For f0rsakeN, Jinggg, and the rest of the roster, the question is no longer about talent or resilience. It is about whether this team can win a series against an opponent who has specifically prepared for their style with full rest and a bracket advantage. That is the gap Santiago highlighted, and it is the gap they need to close before London.
The Regional Recalibration After VCT Masters Santiago 2026
Santiago confirmed what the Kickoff results suggested but could not prove internationally: the Pacific region is operating at a level that the rest of the world has not matched in 2026. An all-Pacific Grand Final, the region’s fourth consecutive Masters title, and the top two finishers both coming from the same league is not a coincidence. It is a trend.
Americas had a mixed showing. G2 Esports delivered their best international result since Masters Bangkok, where they reached the Grand Final in 2025, finishing fourth after competitive series against both Nongshim and Paper Rex. NRG’s third-place finish is respectable on paper but disappointing relative to expectations for a defending champion. FURIA, despite entering as Americas’ first seed after an undefeated Kickoff upper bracket run, fell in the Upper Quarterfinal to Paper Rex and then lost to BBL in the Lower Bracket, exiting 7th-8th. For a team that was supposed to signal a Brazilian resurgence, that result demands introspection.
EMEA had a turbulent event. BBL Esports arrived undefeated from EMEA Kickoff and showed flashes of the aggressive style that earned them the region’s first seed, but a loss to NRG in the Upper Quarterfinal and subsequent elimination by G2 left them at 5th-6th. Gentle Mates, the feel-good story of EMEA Kickoff after being reinstated following KOI’s departure, advanced through the Swiss Stage at 2-0 behind marteen’s record-breaking kill numbers, only to be swept by Nongshim in their first playoff match. Team Liquid, with nAts anchoring the roster, went 0-2 in the Swiss Stage and exited without reaching playoffs. The absence of Fnatic, who failed to qualify, was felt not because they would necessarily have changed the outcome, but because EMEA’s depth looked thinner without them.
And then there is VCT China. There is no gentle way to frame what happened in Santiago. Edward Gaming, the Champions 2024 winners, went 0-2 in the Swiss Stage, including a 1-13 loss to T1 on the opening map of their elimination match. Xi Lai Gaming suffered the same fate, losing to NRG and G2 without winning a single map across two series. All Gamers, the region’s top seed, salvaged partial dignity by eliminating Gentle Mates and taking a map off Paper Rex before falling in Lower Bracket Round 2. The region went 1-6 in series across the tournament.
| Region | Teams | Best Finish | Series W-L | Playoff Wins |
| Pacific | NS RedForce, Paper Rex, T1 | 1st | 11-3 | 9 |
| Americas | NRG, G2, FURIA | 3rd | 7-5 | 4 |
| EMEA | BBL, Gentle Mates, Team Liquid | 5th-6th | 3-5 | 0 |
| China | All Gamers, EDG, Xi Lai Gaming | 5th-6th | 1-6 | 1 |
The data tells the story plainly. Pacific’s combined series record is lopsided enough that any Valorant tier list for 2026 needs to start from the assumption that the region’s top three are, at minimum, semifinal-caliber at every international event until proven otherwise.
The T1 Question and the Defending Champion Curse
One result that deserves more attention than it received: T1, the reigning Masters Bangkok champions, were eliminated in the Swiss Stage. They beat Team Liquid but lost to Gentle Mates and then fell to NRG in the decider round. For a team led by BuZz and carrying the pedigree of the most recent Pacific Masters champion, an exit before playoffs is a significant underperformance.
The pattern is now worth tracking. EDG won Champions 2024 and struggled internationally since. T1 won Masters Bangkok and failed to reach playoffs in Santiago. NRG won Champions 2025 and, while they reached the semifinal, looked distinctly beatable in a way they did not at their peak. The VCT ecosystem is punishing defending champions with increasing regularity, and the reason is structural: the meta shifts between events are significant enough that the playbook that earned a trophy three months ago can become a liability if not rebuilt from scratch. Nongshim, with minimal international tape for opponents to study and a coaching staff willing to innovate, had the advantage of being a blank page. Established champions carry the opposite burden.
What VCT Masters Santiago 2026 Means for the Road to London and Shanghai
The VCT Points distribution from Santiago sets up a fascinating second half of the season. Nongshim’s 6 points and Paper Rex’s 4 points give Pacific an enormous head start in the Champions qualification race. NRG’s 3 points keep them in the conversation, and G2’s 2 points maintain their trajectory, but the margins are thin enough that Stage 1 performance and Masters London results will matter enormously.
Stage 1 begins April 1 across all four leagues. For Nongshim, the challenge shifts from proving themselves to defending a target. Every team in VCT Pacific now has hours of international tape to study, and the Dambi-centric Neon compositions that dominated Santiago will face increasingly tailored counter-strategies. Whether Nongshim can evolve beyond the identity that won them this trophy will determine if they are a one-event phenomenon or a genuine dynasty in the making.
For EMEA, the offseason between Santiago and Stage 1 is a reckoning. Without a single playoff win at the first international event of the year, the region needs to reconcile its self-image as a top-tier competitive force with results that suggest otherwise. Fnatic’s return to the mix in Stage 1 will help, but the fundamental gap in pace and adaptability that Santiago exposed will not be solved by one roster addition to the regional pool.
Masters London in June will be the next data point. By then, we will know whether Santiago was the beginning of a new era or simply the moment an exceptional team peaked at exactly the right time. The smart money, based on everything Nongshim showed in Chile, is on the former. But competitive Valorant has a way of humbling certainty, and the teams who left Santiago with losses are not the kind to accept them quietly.
The season is a few days old in its post-Santiago chapter. It already has more questions than answers. That is precisely what makes 2026 worth watching.
