Despite entering this year's VALORANT Champions Tour as favorites, G2 Esports fell to Paper Rex in the first round of the 2025 VCT Masters Toronto's knockout stage, shocking many. Following this slow start, the squad now finds itself in a do-or-die scenario, facing off against XLG Esports to keep their tournament hopes alive. In an exclusive interview, duelist Alexander "jawgemo" Mor discusses the loss, the rebalancing of expectations, G2's scrims and early struggles, and his redemption year.

What do you think led to today’s defeat against Paper Rex? The maps were very close — what are your thoughts?

Alexander "jawgemo" Mor: "We just had a slow start because we hadn’t been on stage yet. It felt a little uneasy at first. We started to get into it and had some good rounds, but it's been a while since we’ve been on an international stage. Our last one was in Bangkok, where we finished as runners-up. We were trying to replicate what we needed to do in the server and bring it to the stage, but since this was our first game here, it’s just unlucky.

Many say the Swiss stage gives teams valuable experience — helping them identify weaknesses and improve. Do you think it gave Paper Rex an advantage today, especially since they had a new player and came in as the third seed?

jawgemo: Yes. Not all teams can benefit from this kind of experience, but Paper Rex are one of the teams that really gain from figuring out what’s wrong with their game — finding the gaps in their own gameplay, which in turn helps them find the gaps in ours. They were actually one of the teams I was most worried about in that regard, and I tried to counter it. It worked a little, but we just couldn’t close it out as a team, so that made it harder.

For teams like us, coming in without any stage experience, we don’t fully know our gaps. We have scrims, but that doesn’t always give the best results. So now, being in the lower bracket might actually help us with this lower run — we’ve started to identify some of those gaps, not on all maps, but we know this is our last chance, and that’s going to push us to improve a lot.

Your coach mentioned in the press conference that he had a feeling your team would start slower than others. Since it’s been a while since your last official match, how have things been going behind the scenes? Did you personally expect today to be rough, or were you feeling confident coming into it?

jawgemo: I never expected to start rough. I always expect to start hot — that’s just how my mindset is going in. It’s more about getting shut down or not knowing what to do, or maybe the team not being confident in certain things we usually run. That kind of brings morale down a bit. Everyone needs to find a way to bring that morale back up and hit those sweet spots in our gameplay.

Scrims haven’t been that bad, but they haven’t been great either — it’s just scrims. NA has some good teams and some not-so-good ones. And some teams are still prepping for EWC, so we can’t even scrim them because we’ll be playing that tournament too. We’re scrimming who we can, but it’s not as much as we’d like, and not always the better teams. We’re also not scrimming any of the teams here, because we might end up playing them.

Coming into this match, G2 were seen as potential favorites — runner-up at Bangkok, back-to-back VCT Americas champions. How do you think today’s result changes the expectations for the rest of the tournament? Do you see Paper Rex as real contenders for the title? And where does G2 stand going forward?

jawgemo: Honestly, I wouldn’t say they can win the crown just yet. I still think they’re a team that’s beatable — especially if someone figures out how they play or if they’ve been in the tournament as long as Paper Rex has. We just failed today as a team, and some of us individually — me included. There are stronger opponents, like Gen.G, Xi Lai Gaming, and even Rex Regum Qeon — those are my top three right now in the tournament.

As for us, this is just a learning curve. Our IGL and coach both pointed out that there were gaps we needed to address. Our defense wasn’t good today — across all maps. Our attack was fine; we got what we needed, but we didn’t win pistol rounds. Now we just need to go over our defense and also prep our attack for our next opponents. I still believe we have a chance — I don’t think we’ll get knocked out. This was more like a slap in the face, a reminder that hey, you’re here now.

You mentioned Gen.G in your top three teams. Some people clowned G2 for picking Paper Rex. Do you still believe Gen.G is the stronger opponent compared to them?

jawgemo: Yeah. Just from watching them and from playing against them a while back, I can say that Gen.G has really good discipline, and their team play is on another level. Today was actually the first time I’ve seen Paper Rex play with really strong team play — like knowing how to reclear properly while still taking the fights they’re known for. If they keep playing like that, Paper Rex might make it into my top 3-4. But Gen.G is still higher up for me because they really know their system, and they’ve been playing insanely well in their recent matches. And then there's RRQ — I mean, they have Jemkin (Maksim Batorov). XLG too, with Rarga (Arthur Churyumov). These duelists are insane, and the momentum they bring along with how they play for the team — that’s been the biggest X-factor I’ve seen so far in the tournament.

People often say shooters are the genre where Americas and EMEA can actually win, unlike in games like League of Legends where Korea has dominated. But recently — especially since Madrid — the Pacific region and China have been on the rise, winning everything. What’s your take on the current regional balance?

jawgemo: There are still some strong American teams — like ourselves and Sentinels. We were talking about this during the event, even right after we won Stage 2. We said, “Hey, we need to boot camp — but not in EMEA.” Because EMEA is always behind on the curve now. There’s only one team left from that region here, right? Fnatic are the only ones. So EMEA’s not on our list of destinations for boot camping. We know Pacific teams are insane right now. Wolves, XLG — they’re all playing out of their minds. There are way more teams in the Pacific region too, so they have more scrims and more variety in their comps.

The Americas are pretty decent, but I don’t see the same passion. A lot of teams just copy whatever’s working on a given map instead of innovating. You can really see the difference — like with the Pacific teams running double duelists. They have clear ideas about what they want to do on the map, and they’re also just shooters. In America, there aren’t that many pure shooters. And in EMEA, I don’t think there are many either — outside of top teams like Fnatic. We're going to be in trouble if we don't look into the Pacific region and learn what they’re doing — why they’re improving so fast. Pacific may become the strongest region soon. Now, it’s up to the rest of the Americas teams — and Fnatic — to prove they can still compete.

Do you think EMEA still has hope with Fnatic, or is the region just falling off completely?

jawgemo: Honestly, yeah. But well, Crashies (Austin Roberts) went to Fnatic, and they’re still doing good — I wouldn't even call them an EMEA team. They’ve got him, he’s my boy, he’s cool, but I haven’t seen much else from that region. When we scrimmed in Berlin for like three months, it was... nothing. The only standout teams were the Turkish ones, like FUT Esports — they’re insane. But unfortunately, they didn’t make it to this event. So usually, it’s one good EMEA team and a Turkish team.

For Americas, it’s usually us, Sentinels, and maybe one more team. In China, you’ve got EDward Gaming, Trace Esports, even Bilibili Gaming and Wolves Esports stepping up as well. A lot of Chinese teams are starting to make moves. Then Pacific — man, all those teams are leveling up. I’ve been watching Karon (Kim Won-tae) for a long time, and now I see him on stage, winning events like the Masters Shanghai 2024. Pacific is going up fast. Right now the order is something like: Pacific number one, China number two, Americas number three… and sorry, EMEA’s at the bottom.

2023 was your peak — you won Champions. 2024 was rougher, but now you're on G2 and there are a lot of positives, despite today’s loss. Do you see 2025 as your redemption year and a chance to reach the next level?

jawgemo: Yeah, I would definitely say it’s a redemption year for me. Last year, I didn’t get to play at the internationals. This year, we won the two Americas stages, but there’s still more to prove. We got second in Bangkok — that’s still not enough. Taking trophies home for these guys is one of my goals. We just haven’t hit that flow state yet. That’s what I was saying at the beginning of this interview — once we find that sweet spot, we’re going to be just crushing it.

Between XLG and Sentinels — do you have a prediction for who wins?

jawgemo: I want to play against XLG and Rarga. If Sentinels loses, we'll beat them again — that’s our hope.

Is there anything you’d like to say to G2 fans?

jawgemo: Love the G2 Army — love you guys for supporting us. Catch us in a couple of days, we’re gonna close it out. We’ll be good in these lower brackets."