VALORANT Masters Toronto: The winners and losers

Masters Toronto, the second international competition in the 2025 VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), has concluded with Pacific’s Paper Rex (PRX) lifting the trophy.

Featuring both underdogs and well-established names from the game’s four VCT circuits, the Toronto competition saw highly competitive matches that, at times, brought about unexpected results.

As teams and fans are heading towards the final chapter of the ongoing VALORANT esports season, Esports Insider has examined the winners and losers of Masters Toronto.

On top of the podium is, of course, PRX, who lifted the Masters Toronto trophy after defeating EMEA’s Fnatic 3-1 in the Grand Final. What makes PRX’s victory stand out is that the roster attended the event as its region’s underdog following a rough Group Stage in VCT Pacific’s Stage 1 and a miraculous Playoffs run to take the third qualification slot for Toronto.

Ahead of Masters Toronto, this phenomenon of continuous perseverance and undefeatable force was dubbed the ‘PRX Train’ by some VALORANT personalities. However, as the Pacific team steadily gained momentum on the international stage, more and more believers joined the ‘track by track’ movement.

For the PRX players, most of whom have been part of the organisation since 2021, this was their first international trophy. The roster had come close to several Masters titles and the Champions 2023 trophy in the past, but never managed to clear the final hurdle until now.

EMEA did not have a good time at Masters Toronto. Its second and third seeds were eliminated in the Swiss Stage, leaving direct Playoffs buy-in, Fnatic as the ‘last hope of EMEA’.

Team Heretics, in particular, delivered a surprisingly underwhelming performance, losing both of its two Swiss Stage matches despite going into the tournament as one of the stronger contestants with the possibility to play one of its best maps, Sunset.

Fellow EMEA squad, Team Liquid, was dealt a tough card ahead of Masters Toronto. Liquid’s in-game leader (IGL), Ayaz ‘nAts’ Akhmetshin, struggled to obtain a Visa, forcing the team to kick off the competition with a stand-in player. With such a sudden change and lost practice time, even nAts’ arrival for the second and third match could not save Liquid from drowning in the Group Stage.

Masters Toronto was fruitful soil for underdog runs, including VCT China’s Wolves Esports. Emerging in third place from a region which saw its biggest name, Champions 2024 winner Edward Gaming, underperform and Ascension 2024 team XLG Esports take a surprising victory, Wolves was not necessarily favoured among the Swiss Stage teams.

However, the squad made an impressive statement, defeating Heretics and taking revenge against China’s second-place Bilibili Gaming. This was the beginning of Wolves’ heroic journey at Masters Toronto, which then saw the underdog fend off tournament favourites Rex Regum Qeon and Gen.G Esports.

It was not only Wolves’ unexpected performance that left a lasting impression among VALORANT esports fans — many of its players gave viewers explosive frags, meme-worthy reactions and touching speeches.

The first seeds from each of the four VCT Stage 1 competitions earned direct Playoffs buy-ins for Masters Toronto. Without the risk of early elimination, they had additional preparation time and gameplay demos for the Swiss Stage teams.

In theory, this should allow them to have a strong start in the Playoffs, right? Well, reality turned out differently as all the first seeds lost their opening matches and immediately landed in the lower bracket. Then, Fnatic and G2 Esports eliminated fellow first seeds Rex Regum Qeon and XLG, respectively. Although this early downfall led to a challenging tournament run for the survivors, Fnatic and G2, it also gave viewers an incredibly stacked and entertaining lower bracket to follow.

In hindsight, it does not seem too surprising that PRX and Wolves Esports could triumph over some of the first-seeded teams. At this stage of the event, however, many considered it impossible that tournament-favourite G2 would suffer a 0-2 loss to an underdog from Pacific.

Moreover, the disappointing performance from all first seeds sparked a heated debate within the VALORANT community, questioning whether the first-seeded teams face more disadvantages than benefits in the current Masters format.

Following the Tejo nerf and map pool changes after VCT Stage 1, Masters Toronto represented the dawn of a new meta. The competition treated fans to a variety of team compositions as coaches and IGLs tried to figure out the best agent combinations on the latest patch.

Many teams reverted to 2023/24 comps from before the domination of Tejo in professional play. However, the creative minds benefited the most from the shifting meta. Teams like Gen.G, Fnatic and Wolves Esports all gained an edge from surprising opponents with well-prepared, hitherto unconventional team compositions.

For instance, MIBR had a hard time making on-the-fly adjustments to Gen.G’s Deadlock pick on Lotus, earning Gen.G a decisive first victory. The Korean squad was also an early proponent of double-controller comps, featuring Viper, which emerged as a popular take on the new meta during Masters Toronto.

Meanwhile, teams that preferred to play it safe with their agent picks, particularly the first seeds, were often punished for risk aversion.

Finally, let’s have a look at G2 Esports, which was in many ways the golden child among Masters Toronto contestants heading into the tournament. Despite having attended several global events in the past, including last year’s Masters Shanghai and VALORANT Champions, the VCT Americas team could never claim that coveted international trophy.

This year, everything was supposed to be different. With the addition of Champions 2023 winner, Alexander ‘jawgemo’ Mor, G2 established itself as one of the strongest rosters within its region. Thriving in the previous Tejo-meta, the team won Americas Kickoff to qualify for Masters Bangkok in February. But in an unexpected turn of events, G2 was defeated by Pacific’s T1 in the Grand Final.

It was another devastating loss, yet G2 returned home to again dominate regionally. With the Stage 1 trophy secured and the first seed advantage, surely the team had everything needed to win a Masters event.

It is difficult to break down a team’s underperformance without an insider perspective, but it seemed like G2 struggled to find its footing in the uncertain new meta at Masters Toronto. The team debuted several team compositions, such as double-initiator and double-controller combinations, for the same maps with varying results.

In addition, G2, usually a mountain of consistency, displayed an uncanny scrappiness during its final match in Toronto against Fnatic. 

On the bright side, the many VCT points for its regional titles and high-ranking Masters results this year have allowed G2 to become the first team to qualify for Champions 2025. Perhaps, G2 can still lift its first international trophy on the biggest VALORANT esports stage of the year.