G2 Esports advances to Red Bull playoffs over FNATIC

G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #1 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf has defeated FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #5 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder 2-0 in round 3 the Swiss stage of Red Bull Home Ground #5. G2 now advances to the playoffs, while FNATIC has been eliminated.

Both teams ended yesterday with 1-1 records in the Swiss stage. FNATIC suffered an early loss to Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #8 Xeppaa Erick Bach v1c Victor Truong mitch Mitch Semago neT Michael Bernet OXY Francis Hoang and later defeated FOKUS FOKUS Europe Rank #30 hoody Aaro Peltokangas YaBoiLewis Lewis Hughes Mistic James Orfila al0rante Felix Brandl xuss Tselmeg Tsolmon . On the other side, G2 successfully defeated Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #164 saadhak Matias Delipetro Avez Hazem Khaled Elite Efe Teber SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin marteen Martin Pátek in their first game but later lost to T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) .

On top of determining which team would go home, this series also served as a rematch of the Champions 2024 lower round 1, where FNATIC eliminated G2 in 2-0 fashion.

The match kicked off on FNATIC's map pick of Haven, where they dominated FOKUS 13-4 yesterday. They opted for their signature Yoru-Iso composition, while G2 brought out a standard Neon-Breach.

Despite FNATIC's exceptional winrate on the map, G2 was in control throughout the first half on their defense, consistently countering FNATIC's pressure around the map with proactive reclears and coordinated floods to take an 8-4 lead.

A second pistol win for G2 seemed to set them up for a simple win. However, reality was more complicated, as the next three rounds saw three back-and-forth round wins by the team with worse weaponry. G2 eventually stabilized in the chaos with two strong C hits to get up to 12-8. The North American squad went on to win Haven 13-9, delivering FNATIC their first loss on the map of 2024.

valyn achieved the highest rating in the server with a 1.47 rating, 250 ACS, and 20 kills to 13 deaths. However, it was Alfajer leading in almost every category with 316 ACS, 24 kills, 8 of which first kills, and 215 ADR.

The next map was G2's pick of Bind. Both teams selected relatively standard compositions, with Alfajer notably playing Raze for FNATIC and kaajak playing Gekko instead.

G2's defense half on Bind proved to be even stronger than it was on Haven as they chained a pistol win into a bonus. FNATIC almost managed to win a thrifty in round 4 off the back of sharp Sheriff shots from kaajak, but jawgemo won out a 1v2 to secure the round.

From there, the rest of the game was smooth sailing for G2; they consistently burned down the clock, either cleanly retaking the sites or denying FNATIC the opportunity to plant altogether. This time, G2 easily carried forward the momentum from a second pistol win to win Bind 13-2. leaf dominated the opposition with an outsized 2.22 rating, 419 ACS, 93% KAST, and 26 kills to only 7 deaths.

With this win, G2 is set to play Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #8 Xeppaa Erick Bach v1c Victor Truong mitch Mitch Semago neT Michael Bernet OXY Francis Hoang today in the semifinals to determine who will secure the first spot in the grand final against the winner of FUT Esports versus T1.