Why Masters Santiago had to redraw Swiss Stage matchups

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The VALORANT Masters Santiago tournament faced a problem when the initial pairings for the Swiss Stage needed to be changed. Here’s what tournament commissioner Leo Faria explained about the situation.

Leo Faria, who leads VALORANT Esports globally, has announced that the initial pairings for the first two stages of the VALORANT Masters Santiago tournament will be redrawn. This change was necessary, and here’s what happened and how the teams responded.

VALORANT Masters Santiago redraw

After the last match of the preliminary round ended in a draw, the pairings for the next stage were determined on stage. Here’s how the matches were set up:

1-0 0-1
PRX vs M8 EDG vs G2
NRG vs TL T1 vs XLG

A few hours after the initial stage assignments were made, Leo Faria announced on X (formerly Twitter) that they would be doing the draw again.

The draw had to be repeated because of a mistake: in both of the first two matchups, the teams were accidentally assigned to the wrong game. The second team selected was put in the first game instead of the second.

Here’s a screenshot from the live broadcast. Paper Rex was selected first and positioned correctly. Then, Gentle Mates was chosen, but they should have been assigned to a different match – one that wasn’t against Paper Rex.

This is according to the official rulebook.

The same error happened for the 0-1 matches.

At around 12:30 am local time in Chile, the new draws were announced:

1-0 0-1
PRX vs NRG EDG vs T1
M8 vs TL G2 vs XLG

Fans pointed out that the latest pairings included teams from the same region competing against each other – a result most people don’t enjoy, particularly so early in the competition. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative, and it wasn’t just the fans who were disappointed with the new matchups.

Nobody was happy after the redraw.

Faria’s late-night announcement in Chile has already cut into the teams’ valuable preparation time.

Team Liquid’s MiniBoo was also upset with the difficult situation. His coach, yaotziN, actually learned about the meeting of coaches through a social media post.

Leo Faria’s comments reflected what many fans and players were thinking. Some people pointed out that because the initial draw was already based on chance, the fairness of the competition could have been maintained.

Faria addressed concerns, including one raised by Paper Rex coach Ashton “Wendler” Wendler. He explained, “It’s important to fix the tournament brackets. We can’t continue if the matchups aren’t correct.”

He admitted the situation was a mistake and that they didn’t respond quickly enough. He then apologized to the teams involved and expressed his gratitude for their understanding.

The redraw did give us Paper Rex vs. NRG, much to the delight (or heartbreak) of Pujan “FNS” Mehta.

The second round of the Swiss Stage at the Masters Santiago tournament will start on March 2nd with matches between teams that have one win and zero losses. The following day, March 3rd, teams with zero wins and one loss will play their matches.

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2026-03-02 10:41