G2 take down 100 Thieves in BLAST Premier Group C opener

G2 are through to Group C's winners' match at BLAST Premier following a two-map series against 100 Thieves.

The French team gave a solid account of themselves in a match where both sides showed signs of rustiness after being away from a LAN atmosphere for a long period of time. 100 Thieves were occasionally the better team but dropped off the pace as the games wore on and made a number of uncharacteristic errors, starting with their Vertigo pick, which surprised everyone, including their opponents, and backfired on them.

Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković started the series with a bang, delivering a quad-kill in the opening round of Dust2 to kick G2 into the lead. The Serbian player was a man on a mission to beat his former team as he continued racking up kills during the early stages, which were dominated by the French side.

G2 struggled to push forward for a while after that as 100 Thieves enjoyed a spell of dominance that resulted in six consecutive rounds going their way. The map was starting to get away from the French side, but they responded with three round victories in a row before Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas gave the Australians an 8-7 lead with a 1v2 clutch in the final round.

100 Thieves came out of the break the brighter of the two sides and brought the scoreline to a 13-8 advantage after a dream start to the half. G2 then took the game by storm, pressing their opponents all over the map and shutting down both bombsites with a double AWP setup to pick up the map in the 29th round.

A quad-kill by Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage in the opening round of Vertigo marked the beginning of a lively start from 100 Thieves on their map pick. The Australians jumped out to a 6-1 lead, but as the half came to an end only one round separated the teams after G2 fought back bravely with some great individual actions from nexa and Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub.

The early stages of the second half were highly contested as neither side managed to find a breakthrough. But with the score tied 12-12, G2 shut out the Australian offense and won a series of retakes on the A site to run away with the game and put the match to bed.