"MiniBoo" of Team Heretics with his head on his hands on-stage at Champions 2024 MiniBoo on stage in the winner's match of Group B (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

In a match to punch the first ticket to the Champions Seoul quarterfinals, Masters Shanghai runners-up Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Unranked MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius defeated Masters Shanghai champions Gen.G Gen.G Korea Unranked Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) yoman Chae Young-moon (채영문) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태) 2-1.

The sequel to Gen.G vs. Heretics did not disappoint, going the distance once more.

The three-map series was played out on Abyss, Lotus, and Bind, with Abyss being Team Heretics's pick, Lotus being Gen.G's pick, and Bind being the decider. Gen.G won Abyss 13-11, Team Heretics won Lotus 13-11, and Team Heretics won the all-decisive Bind 13-10.

After playing against and defeating Sentinels Sentinels North America Unranked N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid , the team who had beaten them in the Masters Madrid grand final, Gen.G went up against another familiar foe in Team Heretics. The biggest differences between Tuesday's match and the Shanghai grand final in June were the re-introduction of MiniBoo , and Abyss being added to the map pool.

“Props to paTiTek , because he played extremely well in the [Shanghai] grand finals,” Gen.G's Munchkin said, speaking on the new-look Team Heretics after the match. “They were a strong team back then as well, but with MiniBoo rejoining their team and with them at their full strength, their agent pool is much wider, which lets them approach the game differently.”

Map one was Gen.G's first time on Abyss. Valorant's newest map was one of Gen.G's frequent bans while playing in the Pacific region this year. They used a team comp identical to what they had frequently run on Breeze earlier this year.

After a back-and-forth first half, Gen.G closed their attacking half ahead, 7-5. After the teams switched sides, the back-and-forth nature continued.

Gen.G called both of their timeouts in the last five rounds of the map, wanting to secure the win and steal their opponent's map pick. Coaches solo and HSK appeared to go to the drawing board during these timeouts, grabbing three out of the last five rounds for a narrow 13-11 victory.

On Jett, t3xture played below his usual standard, unable to find a single kill with the operator. He still had moments, seizing six multi-kill rounds, including an early four-kill round to seize the momentum.

t3xture records a crucial post-plant 4K.

Meteor was the standout on Abyss, claiming nine multi-kills, including a pair of four-kill rounds. He finished the map with a server-leading 28 kills on Yoru.

After stealing Team Heretics's map pick away from them, Gen.G's map pick of Lotus was up next. In the grand final at Masters Shanghai, Lotus was the penultimate map to be played. Gen.G claimed it 13-4, the first of two blowout victories before crowning themselves the champions at Masters Shanghai.

On Lotus, up 10-5 and three rounds away from closing the series for good, Gen.G lost their grip on the game, losing eight of the next nine rounds and eventually, their map pick.

Lotus wasn't just closer than it was at Masters Shanghai, it was almost an entirely different map for Team Heretics. The European team's fantastic attacking half, highlighted by winning eight of the last nine rounds, was highlighted by them holding three operators in the map-winning round – a sign of their healthy economy.

Gen.G had 15 first bloods in the map, but could not convert the 5v4s. They'd have just one successful retake out of ten attempts. After being down 10-5, Team Heretics came back and stole Gen.G's map pick.

"Fifteen? That's crazy," benjyfishy said in an interview with VLR after the match.

"If you're down 4v5 or 3v5 you've gotta have the confidence to go and do something that's gonna win you the round and against Gen.G, even if its a 5v5, if you let them do what they want they're probably just going to kill you," he said. "You've gotta do something extra and I think that's what we were doing. We were making plays, doing stuff on post-plant, doing stuff like that. When we didn't do that we lost, so we kinda realized we needed to do more than what we realized we should do."

That left the series to the decider map, Bind, the same map that FunPlus Phoenix had defeated Team Heretics on and a map that Gen.G had gone undefeated on this year.

Team Heretics reinvented their team comp, which included three agents with flashes to assist with attack-side entries. They'd end their attack half up 8-4, much better than the four rounds they managed against FPX.

Team Heretics's flash-heavy comp was effective on defense, too. Team Heretics could flash for information, and every swing was accompanied by a flash.

As the Team Heretics wins started to pile up, Gen.G heads fell into Heretics crosshairs.

Down 11-7, Gen.G looked to claw their way back, and their play after a timeout improved. They managed to bring it to 11-10, but Heretics put the map and series away with two dominant rounds.

Perhaps the most uncharacteristic performance was that of Gen.G duelist t3xture, who finished 49-56 and with zero operator kills across all three maps. On Bind, he finished 8-18.

Following the match, a member of the media asked Gen.G if there were any reasons for them appearing less motivated than usual, and in-game leader Munchkin appeared to point to an unexpected external factor: the smoke machines in the arena.

“It did make it hard to breathe. It did get better in the third map, but it makes things foggy,” he said. “We also couldn't see the monitor clearly.”

Gen.G's Meteor finished with a server-leading 76 kills, while benjyfishy led an all-rounded attack with 56 kills.

“This was probably the hardest game I've ever played in my career,” MiniBoo said. Gesturing to his temple, he said “After the game, my head was hurting.”

The loss is just Gen.G's second-ever loss this year in international play, with the first being their Masters Madrid loss to Sentinels.

Having survived the ‘group of death' unscathed, Team Heretics claim the first of eight upper quarterfinal slots and await the results and ensuing draw, while Gen.G will play on Saturday against the winning team between Sentinels and FunPlus Phoenix.