Vitality send G2 to lower bracket in BLAST Premier Europe Finals

A comfortable win on Inferno (16-5) and a big comeback on Mirage (22-20) saw Vitality take down G2 in the opening match of BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Europe Finals, sending them to the lower bracket.

Not even 24-hours after G2's upset loss to BIG in the grand final of DreamHack Masters Spring Europe, the French-Serbian side kicked off their BLAST Premier Spring Finals campaign against rivals Vitality. G2's attempt to turn things around fell flat, though, as they were never in contention on the opening map, Inferno, reminiscent of Sunday's grand final. Unsurprisingly, Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut shone as the best player on the server, providing crucial openings as well as clutches throughout the series.

G2 started Inferno on the back foot, unable to establish themselves on the CT side of Vitality's map pick. Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's squad went up 6-2 before Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub's 1v2 clutch secured G2 the force-buy victory, getting to 6-4. However, Vitality was in control again shortly, hitting sites as a pack and finding continued success.

The first half ended 11-4 in favor of the fully-French roster, and any chances of a comeback were denied by Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier who stopped the clutch attempt in the pistol and secured three with the Deagle to respond to G2's force buy. The conclusion was reached soon, 16-5, with entry duel dominance by ZywOo (6-0) and Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy (5-0) making the map very one-sided.

It seemed like Mirage was going to follow a similar pattern to Inferno, as G2 looked deflated early on, sitting 7-3 behind despite winning the Terrorist pistol. kennyS was the one keeping them in the game, leading the fragging for the French-Serbian mixture as they mounted a comeback which started with a successful B fake and built into a five-round streak, making it 8-7.

Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač came alive in the second half as G2 take control on the defence, limiting Vitality to just one round before reaching map point, 15-8. Things seemed wrapped up for G2, but round after round, they struggled to hold off the pushes toward B or pull off subsequent retakes, despite often having the man advantage. At 15-14, Vitality managed to recover again, bouncing back from a 3v5 thanks to misutaaa and ZywOo's clutch play that forced overtime. Audric "⁠JACKZ⁠" Jug's ace started off the added rounds positively for G2, but after two sets of overtime, it was Vitality to close things out, 22-20.