After they upset Korea’s DRX by winning in the VALORANT Champions Tour Pacific League grand finals, Paper Rex has begun their run at Masters Tokyo—but if it feels like something is missing for the VALORANT team, that’s because he is.
Ilya “something” Petrov, the team’s star duelist player who won the VCT Pacific grand finals MVP title after an innovative performance with Reyna, has had issues with his visa that have prevented him from attending the Japanese tournament.
Unfortunately, with the issues still not sorted by the time of Paper Rex’s first match in the tournament against DRX on June 17, something was left with no option but to stream the match on his YouTube channel while providing a live reaction to his team.
Something’s absence from Tokyo is a huge blow not only for him and Paper Rex but also for fans in Japan who have been looking forward to his possible homecoming since he joined the Pacific League.
Before joining Paper Rex, the Russian player played VALORANT in Japan for Sengoku Gaming over the past 12 months. With the growing popularity of the game as a whole in Japan, something played in several tier-two tournaments before being scouted and acquired by Paper Rex after VCT LOCK//IN. He began the Pacific League season with the team in March.
Due to his year of play in Japan, he has built up a following of Japanese fans that were excited to see him return for Masters Tokyo. Unfortunately, something’s visa issues mean he may not get a chance to fly to Tokyo at all.
In somewhat of a troll post, something posted a picture earlier this week of a Japanese arena with the Crazy Raccoons team logo painted on the wall.
Several fans were quick to assume that this meant the player was in Japan, but Paper Rex’s management quickly confirmed that the picture was old and that something was with staff in Singapore.
With something out of the picture at least for now, Paper Rex has substituted in sixth player Patiphan “cgrs” Posri, who has seen very little playtime so far this year. The team’s main sixth player used to be Benedict “Benkai” Tan, but he has transitioned to the inactive roster for the remainder of the season and is ineligible to be used as a substitute.
Hopefully, something will be able to enter Japan before Masters Tokyo is over—assuming Paper Rex makes a deep run in the playoff bracket. The more likely scenario is that he will next play with the team internationally at VCT Champions in Los Angeles in August.
