G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Unranked jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf has put away Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Unranked paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski kamyk Maks Rychlewski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak 2-0 in the Swiss stage at Masters Bangkok. With this win, the North American squad has locked up the final playoff spot and sent Liquid home.

The momentum couldn't have been more different for these two teams entering the match, with G2 suffering a crushing defeat to EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Unranked 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) two days ago and Liquid overwhelming Sentinels Sentinels North America Unranked N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid just yesterday.

Liquid opted to open the series on Haven, a map neither team had lost on yet this year. Liquid got off to a solid start on their attack side, winning the pistol and taking a 4-2 lead early on.

Round 7 was a turning point in the map as G2 began to read into Liquid's game plan, shutting them down in mid and A to win a thrifty. From there, G2 looked fully in control, denying Liquid's consistent contact plays to go up to 8-4 at the half.

leaf takes down four to take the lead for G2.

The second half was pure G2 domination—they exploited Liquid's weakness on the C site and won every postplant to take Haven 13-5. JonahP was the key player for his side, putting up a 16/12/9 KDA and 159 ADR, and a 1.53 rating.

To stay in the game, Liquid would have to win G2's pick of Lotus, where they lost to Sentinels yesterday. This time, kamo decided to pick Neon instead of Yoru, potentially to pick up the pace and exploit any timing gaps in G2's Tejo-Breach utility.

The first half started similarly to Haven, with Liquid finding a 4-1 start off of rapid A floods and forcing a G2 timeout. The timeout enabled G2 to rally back as they brought things back to par, culminating in a 6-6 half.

nAts continued to lead by example in the first half of Lotus, but the second half was all G2.

Round 16 was the breakaway moment for G2 as they massacred Liquid in a C postplant to go up 9-7. Liquid took a timeout, but it meant little—G2 won every remaining round to win Lotus 13-7. valyn and leaf topped the server for their side, the former scoring 20 kills, 242 ACS, and a 1.52 rating and the latter picking up 21 kills, 257 ACS, and a 1.32 rating.

After immediately bouncing back from their loss against EDG, valyn already has his sights set on a rematch. “We lost to EDG in the Swiss stage, so I want to play EDG in the playoffs,” the IGL declared in the post-match interview.

He'll have to wait to get his wish—G2's first playoff game will be a heavyweight matchup against Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Unranked trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner Sayf Saif Jibraeel Less Felipe de Loyola Basso on Feb. 27.