For the second time in two weeks, a North American team has successfully won an international LAN event featuring top-rated competition.
This time it was OpTic Gaming who lifted the trophy after a brutal last half on Dust2 where the Canadian/American roster only dropped a single round to their opponents G2 Esports.
G2 may very well have over-performed during its short reign starting in June.
But while OpTic’s victory gave the squad its first LAN and series victory against a European team, what does this mean for G2 Esports? The strongest French team of the year had been soaring far above most of the established teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
A cursory glimpse of the performances of the team’s star players Richard “shox” Papillon, Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and Cédric “RpK” Guipouy over the past three months shows a significant dip in their overall stats. While stats don’t account for things such as team cohesion or out-of-game struggles, you can’t ignore that G2 may very well have over-performed during its short reign starting in June.
Make no mistake, these performances from the G2 trio made up some of their best in, sometimes, years. At the time of ESL ESEA Pro League and the ECS Season 1 finals, shox and ScreaM in particular looked like the most explosive duo in the game. And while still retaining solid ratings all across the board, that X-factor which allowed G2 to simply turn any situation into a favorable one has gone missing.
You also can’t ignore ignore the fact that rivals and countrymen EnVyUs are looking at an upward trajectory after spending the majority of 2016 in its worst slump as a team. And even though G2 successfully eliminated EnVyUs in the Northern Arena semifinals, one has to imagine that G2 are casting a waking eye at their rival’s recent strides back into the top of CS:GO.
This means that the final group of the ongoing season of ELEAGUE, which forces teams to lock their rosters for the duration of the season, may be more significant than initially thought. In case EnVyUs fails to advance from Group D, which also features Fnatic, Team Dignitas and OpTic Gaming, then the French teams may indeed be looking to change their rosters prior to the major.
Whether this means a stronger G2 or EnVyUs, however, is uncertain.
