René “TeSeS” Madsen went 20-7 on Mirage and 49-31 across the series as Falcons recovered from a first Dust2 defeat to G2 and won the next two maps.
Team Falcons lost a map to G2 Esports that they had never lost to them before, and for an hour on Friday the Major champions looked like a team about to go home. Falcons then won 26 of the next 36 rounds to beat G2 2-1 (Dust2 11-13, Mirage 13-2, Anubis 13-8) in the quarter-finals of BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2 in Hong Kong. They play FURIA in the semi-finals on . G2 are out in 5th-6th place after a fifth straight series defeat to Falcons.
Falcons
G2
MATYSA wall on the A site
Mirage was G2’s pick, and after two rounds it was 1-1. G2 had answered a lost pistol round by running over the B site with SMGs, and they had the confidence of a team that had just taken their opponents’ map.
It did not last, and TeSeS was the reason. Falcons’ support player held the A site for the rest of the half more or less on his own. When G2 came up the ramp he stopped them, when they tried the connector at the same time he stopped that too, and when they went B instead he was through market before they expected him. In one retake he walked straight through a smoke in a 2v2 and came out with the kill, and Falcons took the round. He had 17 kills at half-time, and Falcons led 10-2.
The other names joined in around him. Finn “karrigan” Andersen was left alone on the A site in one round and took three kills from behind the firebox, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov closed the half with a triple that he finished with a Deagle, and karrigan opened the second half with three more in the pistol round. G2’s only other round was a 1v1 that Guy “NertZ” Iluz won against karrigan with a fake. Falcons took the last nine rounds of the map.
TeSeS finished Mirage 20-7 with 138 ADR. No G2 player had more than 10 kills, and HeavyGod went 3-14.
The Dust2 that got away
It was a long way from the first map. Falcons had picked Dust2, where they had beaten G2 in all three of their previous meetings, and they led 8-6 after karrigan won the second pistol round almost alone, finishing a clutch against NertZ without a defuse kit.
G2 won the next round on a force buy, with two Deagle kills from NertZ, and then four more in a row. Falcons still came within one round of overtime, and in the 24th Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin was the last man alive in the retake. He got his kills and did not reach the bomb in time.
NertZ went 22-16 on the map. karrigan, at 16-14, was one of Falcons’ best players, which is rarely a good sign for them.
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač said on stage after the series that losing their own pick has become a habit Falcons can joke about.
I think we lost eight matches in a row, not eight, I think seven where we lost our map pick, but we’re pretty good at winning the opponent’s map pick, so honestly, we’re pretty comfortable.
The coaching staff, he added, had told the players that the only thing missing on Dust2 was firepower in a few situations.
kyousuke’s ace settles Anubis
The decider started like Dust2. G2 won the pistol round, TeSeS stopped them early with a Five-SeveN and Falcons led 3-1, but G2 then won five rounds in a row on the T side. HeavyGod, almost invisible on Mirage, was suddenly their best player, 12-4 when they led 6-3.
This time Falcons had an answer before the half was over. kyousuke and m0NESY took over the last three rounds to make it 6-6, and in the pistol round after the switch Artem “r1nkle” Moroz opened with two USP headshots for G2 before kyousuke killed all five of them.
G2 won two rounds on the CT side. kyousuke beat NertZ in a 1v1 for 10-7, TeSeS denied MATYS in the smokes for match point, and it was TeSeS again who came through mid to finish it. kyousuke went 18-14 on the map and m0NESY 16-8, while HeavyGod’s 20-14 was G2’s best line.
NiKo said the comeback was what pleased him most.
Dust was rough, but I’m really happy how we bounced back on both Mirage and Anubis. […] We showed some good resilience and we showed something that we haven’t shown in the past two or three months.
FURIA again in Hong Kong
That is the part that matters for Falcons. On Thursday m0NESY said on BLAST’s broadcast that the team keep losing the same way, and they have not reached a final since winning the Cologne Major in June. Saturday’s opponents are FURIA, who beat them 3-1 in the final of this tournament in Hong Kong in 2025 and won Group A this week. Falcons have at least $130,000 secured.
G2 take $85,000 and a better week than they could have expected. They arrived on six straight series defeats, beat MOUZ, took a map off Spirit and were one map from the semi-finals. The problems are still there: huNter- finished 24-46, and NertZ, the best player on Dust2, went 18-30 over the two maps that followed. Their next match is in Stage 2 of the PGL Major Singapore, which starts on 28 November. Falcons enter in Stage 3 on 2 December.
