Esports | VALORANT | Evil Geniuses — The 3-1 Champions Rematch at Kia Forum

On August 26, 2023, Evil Geniuses and Paper Rex sat down inside Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, for the Grand Final of VALORANT Champions 2023, Riot Games’ season-ending world championship. This was a publisher-run VALORANT Champions Tour event played on the Windows PC version of VALORANT using tournament patch 7.02. Evil Geniuses started Demon1, jawgemo, Boostio, Ethan, and C0M, while Paper Rex started something, Jinggg, d4v41, mindfreak, and f0rsakeN. The final used a best-of-five map format, so the first team to win three maps would take the championship. On each map, the teams alternated attacking and defending bomb sites around a device called the Spike; the first side to 13 rounds won unless a 12–12 tie required overtime. The pairing was a rematch. Paper Rex had beaten Evil Geniuses 2–1 in the upper-bracket final at the same arena, but Evil Geniuses then survived a five-map lower final against LOUD to earn another meeting. Split opened with Paper Rex ahead 8–4 at halftime. Evil Geniuses allowed only two rounds after the side switch and recovered to win 13–10, with Max “Demon1” Mazanov recording 27 kills and Alexander “jawgemo” Mor 25. Paper Rex answered on Ascent. Its halftime lead narrowed into a close finish, but Ilya “something” Petrov and Khalish “d4v41” Rusyaidee helped close the map 13–11 and level the series. Bind changed the pace. Evil Geniuses led 9–3 at halftime and finished 13–5, moving one map from the title. Lotus supplied the clincher. Paper Rex again led at halftime, this time 7–5, before Evil Geniuses took control on attack and won 13–10, completing the series 3–1; the reserved fifth map, Pearl, was never played. The result made Evil Geniuses the 2023 VALORANT world champion and the first North American organization to win Champions. It also turned a loss at the same venue two days earlier into a championship rematch won across four maps. The pin marks Kia Forum itself at 3900 West Manchester Boulevard, not the Shrine Expo Hall used during earlier stages of the Los Angeles event. Riot’s official recap records the bracket path and all four map scores, while Nerd Street independently confirms the best-of-five, 3–1 result, venue, and championship context. The cover is a 2014 exterior photograph of the same circular arena, before its Kia naming, rather than an image of the match. Photo: Ritapepaj, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forum_Inglewood.JPG Primary source: https://valorantesports.com/en-GB/news/valorant-champions-2023-recap-evil-geniuses-end-their-roller-coaster-year-in-glory/ Independent source: https://nerdstreet.com/news/2023/8/evil-geniuses-win-valorant-champions-2023 Venue record: https://thekiaforum.com/event/valorant-champions-2023/