G2 eliminate First Strike champs Team Heretics from VCT Stage 2 Masters contention

In poetic fashion, a VALORANT team previously considered the best in Europe has ended the run of the squad that’s now regarded as the best.

In the final open qualifier round for Challengers Two today, G2 Esports decisively dashed Team Heretics’ hopes for making it to the EMEA Challengers Final—and thus, the Masters event in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Heretics were still considered the best team in Europe at the end of the first stage of the VALORANT Champions Tour, despite their loss to Acend in the grand finals. A successful open qualifier run for Stage Two Challengers One saw them on track to make another Masters run, but that was derailed by a quarterfinals loss to Opportunists. In that series, Heretics lost on Haven for the first time after 27 straight wins.

This sent Heretics back into the open qualifiers. And in the final round, they found themselves matched against G2. Arguably the best team in Europe at the end of 2020, G2 fell out of top form in the first VCT stage when they failed to qualify for Masters altogether. It looked like it’d potentially get worse when they didn’t make Challengers One in Stage Two either.

But finally, they got a chance at redemption here in the final round of Challengers Two’s open qualifiers. G2’s duelist duo stepped up huge for their side. Mixwell (Raze/Jett) and paTiTek (Reyna) each notched 43 and 45 kills, respectively, over two maps. Their stand-in, ozzy, played tremendously on Omen and Sage as well, especially given the fact he joined the team just a week prior.

G2 advance to the seeding stage for Challengers Two, where they’ll face Team Vitality. The top two teams at the end of Challengers Two will advance to the EMEA Challengers Finals.

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