The second day of Valorant Champions Masters Copenhagen started with APAC’s second seat, XERXIA Esports, taking on EMEA’s FunPlus Phoenix.
FunPlus Phoenix came into the game with a lot to prove as this was their debut match, while also they were playing with a Substitute as Suygetsu wasn’t able to get the VISA for the event.
XERXIA, though, is known to pull off upsets left and right and has International experience.
The Map veto started with XERXIA banning fracture. A map FPX is known to be good on. While FPX chose to ban Icebox, a map they don’t play.
Xerxia chose to play bind, the last time they played BInd was against Paper Rex, and they had lost the game. It is also a strong map for FPX. At the same time, FPX chose to play Ascent, Their comfort pick.
For the second ban, Xerxia banned Split, and FPX banned Breeze to end on Haven.
Bind started with FPX on defense, where they had difficulty holding off Xerxia’s attack. Xerxia seemed in control for the time and won six out of the first nine rounds. But FPX managed to stop the bleeding and won two out of the following three rounds to close the half 5-7.
Xerxia on defense started struggling with losing the starting four rounds. But Surf’s operator managed to save them, winning them four rounds in a row to make the game 11-9 in their favor.
FPX found gaps in Xerxia’s defense and closed the next three rounds to reach the match point first. Xerxia, in the last round, managed to close the last round to force an OT.
The first OT with FPX on defense completely caught Xerxia players off-guard winning the first two duels to win the first OT round.
The second round was going well for Xerxia, but an over-extension from foxz resulted in Xerxia losing the round. They lost the game 12-14 and have to play FPXs’s pick down one map.
On the second map, Ascent started with Xerxia on defense. Despite a shaky start, Surf’s Operator won seven rounds out of the first twelve on the ground of their unparalleled aggression.
In the second half, the Xerxia aggression continued, and they managed to win the six-round pretty easily despite losing the starting two and closing out the game 13-9.
With this, Xerxia and FunPlus Phoenix exchanged each other map picks, resetting to play the third map, Haven.
Haven started dominantly for FPX, where they managed to win the four rounds despite winning the first round.
Xerxia, though, managed to come back, winning three rounds consecutively, and the back and forth started with the half ending in 5-7.
In the final half of the series, FPX is on the attack, struggles, and has a tough time finding an answer to Xerxia’s defense and Surf’s Operator. But they succeeded in finding a way to penetrate the Xerxia defense, eventually winning the final map 13-10.
With this, FPX won the game 2-1 and moved on to face DRX tomorrow for a chance to qualify, while Xerxia would face Northeption in an elimination game.
