EDward Gaming and Sentinels rose as today's winners following their victories against Paper Rex and Team Heretics, respectively.
As a consequence of these results, the victorious sides have joined Karmine Corp and Gen.G Esports in the higher bracket of the Swiss Stage. Meanwhile, Paper Rex and Team Heretics have dropped to the lower bracket. A second defeat would knock them out from the VCT Masters Madrid.
Here's a brief look at what happened in both matches:
EDward Gaming 2-1 Paper Rex
Results: 8-13 Sunset, 13-9 Bind, 13-9 Split
Before today's match, EDward Gaming and Paper Rex had met three times at international competitions. The history books didn't look good for the Chinese side as they had never won against the Singaporean organization... until today.
The Valorant Champions 2023 grand finalists had a solid start to the series with a 13-8 win on Sunset. Five rounds in the second map, Bind, Paper Rex were 4-1 ahead as an EDward Gaming comeback started to look unlikely. However, the Chinese reacted immediately and got themselves up with seven back-to-back successful defenses. Eventually, they would force map three after a well-deserved 13-9 win on Bind.
EDward Gaming's momentum on defense was extended to Split, where the team swapped roles after winning eight of the initial twelve rounds. Minutes later, the Chinese completed the comeback.
Despite Paper Rex's defeat, Jason "f0rsaken" Susanto's 1v5 Ace went down as the best play of the match as the Indonesian gave his team its first round on Split. Meanwhile, with 55 kills to his name by the end of the match, EDward Gaming's player Zheng "ZmjjKK" Yongkang was the best player of the series.
Sentinels 2-1 Team Heretics
Results: 13-9 Lotus, 5-13 Sunset, 13-11 Bind
The final match of the day saw Sentinels taking down the home side Team Heretics. Overall, it was a game full of ups and downs for both rosters.
Lotus began positively for Team Heretics as the Europeans took eight of their initial twelve attacks. However, Sentinels proved to be even more clinical on the attack as the Americans ended up winning by 13-9 after only dropping one offensive round.
Sunset followed the same script as the Spanish organization swapped sides with another 8-4 advantage. However, this time, the team closed out the map with a great second half.
Team Heretic's momentum kept going on Bind, where the Europeans reached a five-round lead after the conclusion of round seven. Unfortunately for them, Sentinels ended up completing an absurd comeback to win the final map by 13-11.
Zachary "zekken" Jude was Sentinels' best player with 64 kills and 50 deaths. Meanwhile, Dominykas "MiniBoo" Lukaševičius was Heretics' best player with 65 kills and 46 deaths.
Following today's results, EDward Gaming and Sentinels will play against Karmine Corp and Gen.G Esports, respectively. Both matches will take place on Mar. 16 starting from 4 PM CET.