G2’s impressive run through the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 hit its first obstacle today, with the team falling to Cloud9’s CS:GO roster in Group A play of ESL Pro League season 17. C9 has ended G2’s 16-match win streak, which included 13 victories on LAN and two trophies.
The streak was instantly put into jeopardy in map one on Vertigo, with C9 cruising to a huge 16-6 win on their map pick. C9 had an impressive T-side in the opening half, and sh1ro dominated both sides of the map with his AWP.
On Inferno, C9 was able to keep the G2 stars at bay, even in the face of some incredible heroics on the AWP from young star m0NESY. But sh1ro had yet another tremendous game, this time with little use of the AWP; he had 30 kills on Inferno, including 20 in the first half on the CT side, but only seven of those total kills came with his trusted sniper rifle. He finished the series with a staggering +38 K/D differential across the two maps.
Coming into this match, G2 had not lost a match since their opening loss to FaZe Clan at the BLAST Premier World Final. G2 went on to win the World Final itself, which included a revenge victory over FaZe in the semifinal.
After that trophy, G2 went into both the BLAST Premier Spring Groups and IEM Katowice 2023 and didn’t drop a single series, only losing a single map that came during their 3-1 grand finals victory over Heroic in Katowice. Prior to today, they also coasted into the BLAST Major’s European RMR with a 3-0 run in the qualifier.
What made G2’s streak even more impressive was that it started on the heels of a disastrous run for the team, when they failed to qualify for the IEM Rio Major and fell flat at the BLAST Fall Final.
With the victory, C9 has already secured a playoff spot at ESL Pro League, but can secure a bye to the quarterfinals with a win over Outsiders. G2 falls down to the mid bracket, and faces MIBR tomorrow at 9am CT.
Published: Feb 23, 2023 04:41 pm