Leviatán Beat Paper Rex to Win Valorant Masters London 2026

Leviatán beat Paper Rex 3-2 in the grand final of Valorant Masters London 2026 on June 21 at Copper Box Arena, winning the first international trophy in the Argentine organization's history after falling behind 1-0 and 2-1 in the series. The tournament, the first Valorant international event held in the United Kingdom, paid Leviatán $350,000 of a $1 million prize pool, while Paper Rex took $200,000 as runner-up.

Bruno "Neon" Rodríguez was named Finals MVP, while Agustín "spikeziN" Lombardi led the entire event with 383 kills and posted a 213 ACS in the grand final itself. The win gave the Americas region its fourth Masters title and ended the Pacific region's run of four straight Masters championships, a streak that had held since before Leviatán's own title drought began.

Results reported by VP Esports, Copper Box Arena, London, June 21, 2026.

A final that swung three times

Paper Rex won the opener on Fracture 13-2, a lopsided result that put Leviatán in an immediate hole, before Leviatán leveled the series with a 13-6 win on Split. Paper Rex regained the lead with a 13-11 win on Breeze, pushing Leviatán to the brink at 2-1 down, before the Argentine roster won the final two maps, 13-10 on Ascent and 13-5 on Lotus, to close out the title from behind.

spikeziN's new team delivers immediately

Agustín "spikeziN" Lombardi's verbal agreement to join Leviatán for the 2026 VCT Americas season, reported as a two-year deal, came after a 2025 campaign in which the young Brazilian duelist joined 2GAME Esports at the last moment in a failed bid to rescue that team's season. His move was part of a broader shift at Leviatán toward South American talent, with the organization building what reporting at the time described as a Spanish-Portuguese-speaking roster around returning players Francisco "kiNgg" Aravena and Eduardo "Sato" Nagahama after benching its prior high-profile North American lineup in September 2025.

A long wait finally over

Leviatán's title ended a drought that included a third-place finish at Champions Seoul in 2024 and a 2025 season with no international LAN appearances at all, despite a roster that had been expected to contend. The gap between that high-profile but underachieving 2025 lineup and the rebuilt, South American-focused roster that won in London gave the organization's breakthrough an added layer of vindication for the decision to change course so significantly only months earlier.

Paper Rex's second straight final, a different result

Paper Rex entered London looking to defend the title it had won at Masters Toronto 2025, where the roster beat Fnatic 3-1 for the first international trophy in its history after a run of near-misses that included a fourth-place finish at Masters Reykjavík 2022, third at Masters Tokyo, second at Champions 2023 and third at Masters Madrid. London's runner-up finish, despite leading 2-1 at one stage of the grand final, returned the Singaporean organization to the pattern of final-stage frustration that had defined most of its history before Toronto finally broke it.

The youngest champion in the format's history

Leviatán's title run was built around an unusually young core, with four of the five players on the winning roster under the age of 20, making the organization the youngest team ever to win an international Valorant event. Captain Francisco "kiNgg" Aravena, the Chilean veteran who had been with the organization for six years before Sunday, was the exception on a roster otherwise built around recent South American signings, giving the longest-tenured player on the team his first international title at the same moment his much younger teammates were winning theirs.

Neon's MVP turn and spikeziN's tournament-wide form

Bruno "Neon" Rodríguez's Finals MVP award capped a grand final in which the Argentine player's form held up across the full swing from 2-1 down to a title-clinching finish. Pairing his individual performance with spikeziN's tournament-leading 383 kills gave Leviatán two standout performers across the event, with spikeziN's own output in the grand final, 213 ACS, matching the kind of form the team needed from its new Brazilian duelist in his first Masters appearance for the organization.

A bracket run that began with a loss to the eventual runner-up

Leviatán's path to the title began with a loss to Paper Rex in its opening playoff match, sending the second-seeded Americas representative into the lower bracket before it had even reached the tournament's later rounds. From there, Leviatán won a full lower-bracket run, including a win over 2024 world champion EDward Gaming in the lower-bracket final, to reach the grand final for a rematch with the same Paper Rex roster that had beaten it days earlier, this time with the title on the line and a very different result.

Ending Pacific's run at the top

Leviatán's win ended a run of four consecutive Masters titles for the Pacific region, with Sentinels' win at Masters Madrid 2024 standing as the last time a non-Pacific team had claimed the trophy before London. Breaking that streak with Paper Rex as the region's representative in the grand final gave London's result a double significance: the end of one region's two-year run at the top of the format, and the continuation of Paper Rex's own habit of falling just short on the biggest stage.

The first Valorant event on British soil

Masters London 2026 marked the first time a Valorant international event had been held in the United Kingdom, with Copper Box Arena hosting the tournament's full two-and-a-half week run from June 6 to June 21. The venue's selection extended the Valorant Champions Tour's international footprint into a new market, giving London's crowd a first look at the format live after years of the UK scene following international events only from home.

What the win means for Leviatán and Americas

Leviatán's breakthrough gives the Americas region a marquee result to build on after a period in which Pacific had set the competitive standard at international events, with the Argentine organization's rebuilt South American core now carrying a Masters trophy into the rest of the 2026 season. The result also validates the bet the organization made in overhauling its roster just months earlier, trading a higher-profile but underperforming lineup for one built around regional chemistry and a promising young duelist in spikeziN.

A tough tournament for the sport's bigger names

G2 Esports, the dominant force of VCT Americas regular-season play, lost twice in London and exited without a trophy, extending the organization's lack of an international title despite its domestic dominance. Team Heretics, the reigning Esports World Cup champion heading toward a title defense of its own, also fell in the bracket after heavy losses to both Team Vitality and Leviatán, leaving two of the tournament's more decorated entrants without a deep run to show for London.

What comes next

The VCT 2026 calendar continues from London toward Stage 2 of regional play in the coming weeks, before the season closes with the international Champions event, scheduled to begin September 24, 2026, giving Leviatán a long run of competition ahead to prove London was no one-off. Paper Rex's second Masters final in as many appearances, split between a title and a runner-up finish, leaves the Singaporean organization with a result to build on even without the trophy, while the Pacific region as a whole will look to respond to the end of its two-year run atop the Masters format.

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