G2 has Three fundamental problems.
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They don’t prioritize setting up a heavily favored initial duel. Their lack of a star fragger means their primary means of space creation is rotation manipulation by defaults and utility spamming on executes. They lack the explosiveness that a spearhead would bring — icy just isn’t that guy. While their planned executes and anti-strats can feel overwhelming, their base firepower and playstyle doesn’t have the oomph to just dominate their competition. No prior international winner had this problem at the time of their success.
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They fall apart during the mid round because they don’t know how to function in sub-groups outside of a holistic team. Champs EG grinded site executes and anchoring with man down disadvantages to really get good at identifying key positions for players to optimally play off each other. G2 players seem to lose track of their spacing when Valyn isn’t micromanaging and things get hectic. This is why they lose anti-ecos and toss man advantages like in the last round against FNC.
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Leaf’s agent pool is limited to KJ and Viper.
- They switched their Split comp from Cypher to Viper when they dropped neT.
- They Permaban Sunset, the only map where KJ and Viper aren’t meta.
- They force KJ for their Abyss comp when the map plays more similarly to Breeze with long rotates and no strong KJ lockdown positions.
Solution 1: Drop Icy and pick up Jawgemo or N4rrate. I hear comments about how rookies need to be fostered but Icy was always a Sentinel player and he does not cut it as a World Class Duelist.
Solution 2: Break the team up into a group of 2 and 3. Have them on opposite sides and practice scenarios ran by the 3 until the group of 2 can comfortably convert at least a 3rd of the rounds. Swap players around in the groups and repeat. This is heavy, tedious work but builds intuitive synergy between the players without having to rely on an overarching structure (Valyn) to hold their hands. They have a whole offseason and I hope they get to it because they claim they put in more work than everyone else.
Solution 3: Practice Cypher and Sage variations of their existing comps. The former suits their information-heavy midrounding style with greater freedom for Leaf to lurk while the latter shows promise on spam heavy postplant maps like Sunset and Abyss. I don’t care which way they go, I just need to see a proper 7 map pool.
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