G2 came back from losing Ancient 6-13 with clean wins on Dust2 and Inferno.
G2 and Astralis faced off in the quarterfinal of the Esports World Cup.
Within one rank of each other (#10 and #11, respectively) on HLTV, the two teams were fighting for a critical top eight spot at EWC in the light of the race for the Major.
This series is hugely influential for Astralis’s Major qualification. They sought to bounce back to a pitiful end to last season, falling apart internally at the IEM Cologne Major, falling down to #17 in the Global Valve Regional Standings (VRS).
With G2 adding a new AWPer, the match was wide open for Astralis.
Astralis a cut above on Ancient
Astralis won the pistol dominantly, then the second round quickly was at risk.
In a 4v4 situation, Artem ‘r1nkle’ ???Moroz found a flank on two players looking away but missed the shots.
Astralis went onto win a post-plant cleanly, then in the fifth round, Love ‘phzy’ Smidebrant won a 1v2 with the AWP while being peeked from two opposite angles.
In the sixth round, phzy wins another 1v2, this time more cleanly, putting Astralis at 6-0.
G2 comes back to reach 5-6 scoreline from 0-6
R1nkle gets a double kill with a pistol to get G2 a first round on A, and Nemanja ‘huNter-‘ Kovac gets a 3k on Astralis’s A attack on the next, breaking Astralis’s economy.
Next, Guy ‘NertZ’ Iluz came alive to get G2 to five rounds, nearly tying the map, with six kills over two rounds. It looked like it might be a contested map after all as Astralis were disappearing from G2’s screens.
However, at least Astralis ended the half strong winning a post-plant with clean headshots from Staehr.
Astralis clean up the CT-side afer force buy win
G2 got a round with an unexpected A attack, but Astralis replied back with their own force buy. From there, it was all Astralis, as they barely broke a sweat putting away G2’s offense on Ancient.
Victor ‘Staehr’ Staehr was critical for Astralis’s T-side, while Gytis ‘ryu’ Glušauskas dominated the CT-side, and phzy put the pieces together with the clutches.
G2 abuse Astralis on Dust2: repeated B attacks expose Ryu and jabbi
G2 opened up Dust2 by winning the pistol cleanly with a r1nkle 2k, and won conversions.
Then, they turned on the heat on Ryu, repeatedly attacking B, exposing him and his deficient synergy with Jakob ‘jabbi’ Nygaard, unable to set up a single good crossfire against G2’s B-executes.
Despite phzy and Staehr playing well at times, G2 got up to 8-0 on the second map, with huNter- a constant thorn in their side. Astralis was unable to shut down G2’s executes on B-side, in spite of being predictable.
Phzy got an opener in Round 9, and with help of Ryu in the retake managed to get Astralis’s first round.
At 2-8, Astralis won a 3v5 with phzy helping stop another B attack.
G2’s IGL ended the half 16-6, with an unstoppable AK finding the heads of Astralis time and time again, leading G2 a superb 9-round T half.
Astralis started to get their footing in the second half, but r1nkle put his on their neck.
Astralis were starting to get on a roll but eventually ran into r1nkle.
Winning a 1v1 against HooXi visibly frustrated the IGL, then r1nkle went onto take over the map in the second half, winning it 13-6.
The recent addition to G2 combined for 40 kills and only 18 deaths alongside huNter-, with over 100 damage per round each.
Back-and-forth on the third map
R1nkle continued to be a thorn in Astralis’s side as he got a double kill right after Astralis won the pistol on Inferno, giving G2 a huge economic advantage.
G2 got up to 4-1 before Astralis even knew it. It took a strategic play from Astralis to stack the A-side of the map with Staehr popping off with three kills to stop G2.
At 5-3, a critical round unfolded as G2 ran in with four players into A-site with phzy and ryu defending. They each did their job, as HooXi won a critical 1v1 against huNter- to seal the round.
The very next round, G2 went for another A-attack, as jabbi was a turrent taking them down. R1nkle came through with a no-scope in that duel, getting G2 another round on the attack.
Astralis attempts aggression on the last two rounds
At 4-6, Astralis made the bold play to send HooXi into four players with a single flashbang. But fortune favors the bold, as he got two kills and won the round for Astralis.
In the next round, they attempted similar tactics, but Staehr was killed while the enemy was blinded.
The half ended 7-5 for G2 as Astralis needed a winning T-side to claw it back.
That would not come easily, as NertZ deleted three Astralis players attempting to go to Banana right off the bat. The succeeding force buy would not go much better, but they managed a bomb plant.
That extra cash would be put to good use, as it gave Staehr an AK-47 that got Astralis a double entry into B, taking control of the economy at 6-9.
G2 flatten Astralis
G2 still had one more buy in them, which they used to destroy Astralis’s attack piece by piece keeping all alive.
Astralis had little left in the tank besides frustrations, and petered out of EWC. Staehr was the saving grace, still finding openings on the map as ryu logged a 4-kill stinker to bow out of EWC.
The map ended with NertZ finding a simple 3k spraydown to shut down Astralis.
