G2 Esports walk over Paper Rex with 2-0 win

G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #1 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf have defeated Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #5 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov 2-0 to open their Champions Seoulrun. They advance to the Group D winner's match, where they will play against either FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #8 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan qRaxs Doğukan Balaban or EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) for a spot in playoffs. Paper Rex descend to the lower bracket, where they will risk elimination against the losing team of the next series, EDward Gaming vs. FUT Esports.

This match is the second time the teams had played against each other, the first being a 2-1 victory for G2 in the Masters Shanghai playoffs. It is also the G2 roster's debut at the marquee VCT tournament, as the core, previously on The Guard The Guard Inactive JonahP Jonah Pulice trent Trent Cairns neT Michael Bernet valyn Jacob Batio tex Ian Botsch , have had attended one international event in the past.

In the map selection, Ascent and Sunset were the first off the table. Paper Rex picked Icebox, followed by G2 choosing Lotus. Haven and Abyss were banned next, leaving Bind as the decider, which repeated the final two maps of their previous matchup. The veto slightly favored G2, as Paper Rex had only played, and lost, Icebox once since the beginning of Stage 2.

The North American squad opened Icebox with a 3-1 lead, a Gekko bait play helping them win the fourth round by taking advantage of Paper Rex's quick rotations. A mid solo-play attempt from JonahP almost took the next round, but time was not in his favor. Paper Rex went on a small streak, holding the sites without breaking a sweat. G2 equalized at 4-4, as they matched, and took better advantage of, trade ultimates.

Paper Rex win a combination something - mindfreak round

Another round for the attackers prompted a timeout from Paper Rex, but they were unable to take another win, as G2 sealed the half 8-4. The Pacific team won the second pistol round, narrowing the gap. Their aggression was initially successful, with something and mindfreak winning a seventh round for their team, but their opponents adapted quickly. leaf gave his team the following eco round, and the defense continued to hold strong up until match point.

Paper Rex then switched sites to B, scoring another win after dealing with G2's overextended defense. They returned to A the following round, a back-and-forth ending in a 2v2, but G2 closed out the map with a 13-8 scoreline.

“We were expecting a tougher Paper Rex, and we got it,” JoshRT said about his opponents. alecks felt otherwise about his team's performance. “We had a gameplan, but we didn't really follow it,” the Paper Rex coach said.

G2 Esports continued on defense to kick off Lotus, claiming the pistol round via a JonahP 4K. They earned a round streak to force a tactical pause and break their opponent's economy, only losing until round seven. G2 continued their dominance in the half, only dropping three rounds. JonahP was the highlight player during the defense, with 15 eliminations and a number of multikills pushing him to a 1.45 rating and 327 ACS. His performance helped G2 reach a 9-1 lead in their map pick.

Paper Rex began their recovery by the final rounds of the first half, going to the break with a 9-3 scoreline. After halftime, they lost the pistol, but were able to take the follow up, starting to reduce their round deficit. This continued on for their defense, as G2 seemed unable to replicate their previous form to settle the series.

Paper Rex had good ideas throughout the series, but G2 were better able to punish and capitalize on their advantages

By 11-8, G2 called for their first pause ahead of an eco round. The additional support helped the team win the thrifty, which put them at match point. Paper Rex were able to win one more round, and gained the upper hand in round 22, but an icy triple kill put G2 on track to a 13-9 on Lotus.

“We know [Icebox] is a good map for us,” valyn said after the series. “We just took it match by match and now it feels really [strong for us],” he added. “I dare teams to pick it.”

Granted, but you don't have the "go kill" player in Icy. Icy might be one of the best entry-frags in all of Americas at creating space, but so was Victor, and he just got dropped. At least if you have D1 you can make him run something like sage or brim if you need to, but you can also give him the Jett on some maps and say, "alright, Demon1. Go murder", and then the rest of the team focus on execution.

Part of the argument is that Valyn and the rest of G2 minus Icy is a team full of excellent facilitators, and that's not what NRG was when they had Demon1. NRG was a bunch of solo players who play for themselves. I think if you put him on a G2 roster, though, with some of the best controllers and smokers and with arguably the best NA shot caller, then you get championship D1.