Valorant Champions 2025 hits new peak for Paper Rex's first playoffs game

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Valorant Champions 2025 playoffs kicked off with Paper Rex and Fnatic securing the first semifinal spots. Both teams dispatched their rivals in similar fashion, yet one series stood out by drawing significantly higher viewership than the other.

Playoffs at Paris’ Les Arènes began with Paper Rex taking on G2 Esports, who advanced after a challenging group stage run that nearly ended in elimination. The series delivered plenty of drama with overtime on the second map and narrow margins throughout, but in the end, the Masters Toronto 2025 champions secured a 2:1 victory to move forward.

The second playoff clash carried just as much weight, pitting Fnatic against Korea’s DRX, the team that had dismantled EMEA champions Team Liquid in the groups. Fnatic rose to the challenge, weathering a map trade before delivering a convincing win on Lotus to book their place in the semifinals, where they will now face Paper Rex.

Note: these statistics exclude Chinese streaming platforms, since their viewership metrics are not compatible with Western platforms and cannot be included in the totals. Learn more.

Looking at viewership, the opening day of the Champions 2025 playoffs mirrored last year’s trend: the first match drew significantly more viewers than the second. Additionally, the second game of the day saw a gradual drop in audience over its course, a pattern also seen in the previous tournament.

The day’s opener, Paper Rex vs. G2 Esports, reached over 741,000 concurrent viewers at the crucial moment of the third map, surpassing the previous event peak by 11%. This spike was driven largely by a surge in English-speaking viewers compared to the group stage, with peak viewers rising by 80,000 and average viewership roughly 18% higher than the group stage’s busiest rounds.

Read more: Valorant Champions 2025 Group Stage’s audience on the rise, but hype yet to catch up

Viewership took a noticeable dip ahead of the second series, with some Brazilian and Southeast Asian audiences dropping off. The largest decline came from English-language streams, which lost around 150,000 viewers, and numbers continued to fall throughout the DRX vs. Fnatic matchup.

Interestingly, a similar trend appeared last year: the opening match, DRX vs. Sentinels, gained viewers as the series went on, while the following Trace Esports vs. EDward Gaming game saw audience numbers drop. It’s worth noting, though, that last year’s second match involved Chinese teams (whose platform viewership isn’t included), whereas this year featured major teams from Asia and Europe: perhaps a less encouraging signal for the tournament.

As it stands, two of the top-ranked matches feature Paper Rex. Back in the group stage, their game against GIANTX dominated the charts, with the winner advancing to the playoffs and securing a more favorable seed.

Valorant Champions 2025 continues today with the next two Upper Bracket Quarterfinals. The 2025 Esports World Cup champions, Team Heretics, will take on the ambitious MIBR, followed by a clash between GIANTX and NRG Esports.

Keep track of all the action, including live viewership trends, on Esports Charts!