In the opening match of Group C at VALORANT Champions Paris, NRG pulled off a massive comeback against EDward Gaming (EDG), tying for the current record at VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) international events.

Let’s take a look at NRG’s incredible show of force and resilience, and which comeback record the VCT Americas #2 seed managed to tie.

NRG Put the Defending Champions on Notice

In the best-of-three match at the Les Arènes, the defending champions, EDG, got off to a strong start on Abyss. The Chinese powerhouse took a 10-2 lead in the first half as Attackers, and won the pistol round on the Defender side for a near-insurmountable nine-round lead (11-2).

Instead of accepting defeat, the North American side NRG dug deeper than it has ever done before, mounting a comeback for the record books to tie the score 12-12, forcing overtime. In overtime, NRG edged ahead for a 17-15 win to close out Abyss.

With momentum on its side, NRG secured a 13-11 win over Corrode, giving them a 2-0 series score and putting the defending champions on notice at VALORANT Champions Paris.

Canadian Adam “mada” Pampuch topped the scoreboard for NRG on Abyss with a 1.23 rating and a K-D of 31-24, dubbed as a key player in his team’s comeback.

Relive the match with an official highlights video below.

EDG will now face Team Liquid in the group’s elimination match, while NRG will duke it out against DRX in the winner’s match.

NRG’s comeback on Abyss is the biggest any VALORANT esports team has achieved at an international event, tied with G2 Esports’ comeback against Team Heretics on Ascent in the Upper Bracket Semifinals of Masters Shanghai. In China, G2 came back from 2-11 down to win 13-11.

Edge of Your Seat Stuff at Champions Paris

If the opening matches of the Champions Paris group stage are anything to go by, VALORANT esports fans are in for banger after banger. We’ve already seen this incredible, record-tying comeback in Group C, but that’s not all.

We also saw the top seed from EMEA, Team Liquid, get humbled by the #4 seed from Pacific, DRX, in a 2-0 affair (13-8 on Abyss, 13-10 on Bind).

In Group B, the Brazilian side, MIBR, as the lowest-ranked team at the event, swept the top seed from China, Bilibili Gaming, with a powerful 2-0 (13-2 on Haven, 13-9 on Corrode).

The “Group of Death”, aka Group D, didn’t disappoint either, with Team Heretics (ranked #17) taking down G2 Esports (ranked #1) in the opening match with a 2-0 score (13-10 on Corrode, 13-10 on Lotus).

The only group that didn’t have clear upsets in the opening matches is Group A, where Paper Rex took care of business with a 2-0 win against XLG Esports. We did, however, see GIANTX pull off the first reverse-sweep of the tournament to beat Sentinels with a 2-1 scoreline.

It’s only the beginning of Champions Paris, with the group stage running until September 22, followed by the playoff stage (September 25 to October 5), where the top eight teams will compete for a chance to become the world champions and claim the lion’s share of the $2,225,000 prize pool.