‘Play of the tournament’: CS:GO prodigy single-handedly keeps team aloft at IEM Cologne

G2 Esports’ prodigy m0NESY has pulled off one of the plays of the year to keep his team alive during the IEM Cologne group stage on July 29. His magnificent ace featured a four-kill rapid-fire spree with a Desert Eagle, with the squad seeing off Astralis and moving forward in the group’s upper bracket.

Astralis was leading the map for the majority of the time until something came over G2 at 8-12 down. The squad stepped up and began a fightback for the ages—led by the Russian wunderkind himself.

Fighting back to 12-12, round 26 proved to be quick, starting with a kill from m0NESY’s signature AWP. He then switched to his Deagle and brought down three people with three one-taps all inside a couple of seconds. Fiending for the ace, he pushed blameF—the final living member of Astralis—finding him moments later.

After the play, device and m0NESY had a wholesome interaction with each other, exchanging thumbs-ups and waves acknowledging each other’s ability. On the other hand, the commentators were in utter disbelief, asking “Where was this m0NESY?” after the play.

They are referring to earlier this month when m0NESY and G2 struggled to open the season at BLAST Fall Groups. The pressure was on given just how fresh the scene was, with the bulk of the attendees in Copenhagen, Denmark debuting their brand-new rosters. G2, however, looked almost identical in their approach to matches and were subsequently wiped out with just one series win over OG.

Related: IEM Cologne CS:GO 2023: Scores, standings, results

M0NESY himself was poor at the tournament, posting a lowly 1.02 HLTV rating over the course of the event—his lowest-rated tournament since his days with NAVI Junior in 2021. However, he wasn’t hyped up as a prodigy for no reason, and he definitely showed off his potential with this sick play.

G2 still had to fight tooth and nail to close out the map 16-13, tying the series and forcing Nuke—where the 18-year-old continued his rampaging form. G2 walked away victors 16-9, with m0NESY out-AWPing the great device across the series.

G2 will continue their IEM Cologne group stage run tomorrow against the winner of FaZe Clan and Ninjas in Pyjamas, and only time will tell if m0NESY has indeed found his groove once again.