BBL Esports and All Gamers sent to VALORANT Masters Santiago Playoffs lower bracket

Yesterday’s second playoff day at VALORANT Masters Santiago saw regional first seeds BBL Esports (EMEA) and All Gamers (China) record opening match losses.

Meanwhile, reigning VALORANT Champions winner NRG and fellow Americas team G2 Esports will next face off against Paper Rex and Nongshim RedForce in respective upper bracket matches.

The day kicked off with a back-and-forth series between the reigning VALORANT Champion NRG and EMEA rookie roster BBL Esports, which ultimately saw the more experienced team come out on top 2-1.

The first map in the series seemed to serve as proof that EMEA teams still haven’t figured out Pearl. Despite looking dominant on the map domestically, BBL Esports was run over by its Americas opponent on the international stage. NRG, on the other hand, had everything go in its favour. Two pistol-round wins, an attack-side snowball, outstanding individual performances and impactful timeouts allowed the Americas third seed to steal BBL Esports’ map pick 13-6.

Interestingly, BBL Esports looked way more comfortable on NRG’s map pick, Abyss. In the first half, the Turkish team caught NRG off guard with its signature spread-out attack defaults, resulting in a 9-3 lead. Afterwards, the EMEA first seed persevered through several close rounds to even out the match score with a 13-6 victory. Yusuf ‘Lar0k’ Kanber contributed massively to his team’s success, scoring a kill-death ratio (KDA) of 27/9/5 on Abys alone.

The final showdown took place on Split, where BBL Esports took a few rounds to figure out how to shut down NRG’s repeated direct site hits, edging the first half 7-5. Similarly, BBL Esports had an explosive start to its attack half, but was later slowed down by the opponent’s Vyse thorns and Odin sprays. Despite taking the map to overtime, BBL Esports ultimately succumbed to NRG 15-17.

The second match of the day saw triple VCT Americas 2025 winner G2 Esports sweep VCT China’s first seed All Gamers 2-0.

All Gamers found itself on the back foot right from the start of Split. Following a pistol-round win and bonus conversion from G2, All Gamers struggled to scrape four defence rounds together. Although Roman ‘f4ngeer’ Smirnov delivered some impactful frags, his team suffered heavily from a lack of proactivity on the defence. G2, on the other hand, garnered great success with its proactive defence setups, winning the map 13-6.

For Abyss, both teams locked in the recently buffed Harbor as its secondary smoker. All Gamers showcased solid attack strategies with this agent, bolstered by the outstanding aim of each of its members. However, G2 swiftly shifted the momentum back in its favour thanks to flawless site holds and flood retakes. After a 9-3 half, it was only a matter of time until the Americas second seed took the series 13-4. 

G2’s Andrej ‘babybay’ Francisty was the highest-fragging player of the series. Playing Waylay across both maps, babybay achieved an incredible KDA of 34/17/9 and an average combat score (ACS) of 254.

Thanks to victories today, NRG and G2 Esports will remain in the upper Playoffs bracket at Masters Santiago. On March 9th, the two teams will go up against Paper Rex and Nongshim RedForce, respectively.

However, BBL Esports and All Gamers will fight in the first round of Playoffs elimination matches later today (March 8th). At 5 PM BST, BBL Esports will face FURIA, followed by a clash between All Gamers and Gentle Mates.

To find out which teams survive these brawls, VCT fans can tune into the official Masters Santiago Twitch and YouTube broadcasts.