A first look at the new G2

Losses at the hands of Liquid and Natus Vincere may have G2 fans sweating, but is there real reason for concern?

G2 took drastic action in the off-season after a long string of disappointing tournament finishes since a flash in the pan result at IEM Katowice, bringing in in-game leader Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage. Questions were bound to be asked of the changes considering the modest history of the former and the recent inactivity of the latter, but there can be no denying the roles make sense on paper, and now we have had a chance to see this new roster on the server.

Whilst it might seem overzealous to draw many conclusions from only two officials, both on Mirage, there are still clues to be gleaned as to how G2 will utilise their personnel under new leadership. What can clearly be said is there is work to be done considering their resume currently stands at two losses, but is there a proof of concept as to how success can be found in the future?

G2’s positional setup on the CT side was as to be expected — HooXi was the small site anchor, jks the main site anchor, with the trio of Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač playing towards the middle of the map. Specifically on Mirage, their most common setup saw NiKo playing towards connector, huNter- short B, with m0NESY in window.

The European squad did show good variety with their setups, the most common being to move m0NESY around the map to keep the enemy team guessing as to where the AWPer would be. m0NESY swapped with NiKo in one instance to play connector and search for a pick towards top mid that way, another he paired up with jks close to ramp to hold the angle aggressively and grabbed a frag.

Another facet of their defensive setups was a willingness to pick up a secondary AWP, which HooXi would take to anchor the B site. This was utilised at least once early in their defensive half in both games, and was something they abandoned later in the half as it proved unsuccessful.

The IGL did mention in an interview that he felt like he "could shoot nothing for six months" and G2 would still win tournaments, but it is probably best for him to not purchase the economy-draining sniper if this is to be the case. It will be interesting to see if this is a Mirage-specific feature, or if they will try and utilise a double-AWP setup on more maps.

Stylistically, their CT approach was generally reasonably passive, relying on strong crossfires to secure the bombsites, with more aggressive rounds thrown into the mix to switch up the pace. For example, in one round in their match against Liquid, m0NESY and jks paired up to push palace aggressively which net the team an opening frag on an unsuspecting Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic. An interesting fact to note was that their aggression was directed towards taking and denying map control, like fighting aggressively in middle or taking ramp or palace control; pushing to create flanks did not seem to be a priority for G2 on their defensive halves.

G2’s CT side was most certainly the stronger of the two, and is a strong foundation upon which they can build, but there were still two problems that cropped up multiple times across both games.

First, was slow or questionable mid-late round decision making. There were rounds across both games in which G2 were a touch slow to move if they needed to rotate or react to a kill or loss of map control, and one glaring example in the NAVI game where they made a late-round decision to retake with 20 seconds left on the bomb and their opposition firmly rooted in a strong post-plant setup. The latter decision, occurring in round 11 of that match, scuppered their economy for future rounds when they had the chance to save three or four weapons, and turned what could have been a 12-3 half into a 10-5 one. One could argue it’s a judgement call on whether to go for the retake in that scenario, but with little cash in the bank and a solid lead, a save call would have been more prudent.

The second common problem was disjointed aggression. The best example of this came in round 14 of the Liquid game, when NiKo went barrelling out of a smoke at bottom connector into middle to fight players at top middle, but with a single supporting flash and no teammate close enough to refrag. This resulted in the Bosnian star going down for free, leaving his team facing a 4v5 early in the round. HooXi mentioned in an interview during BLAST that his style would revolve around "people getting a lot of responsibility and people getting to do what they want to do," so it is unsurprising to see moments like this occur in the early days of the squad.

Much like with their defensive halves, the roles the G2 members took up in these matches on T side were predictable, but generally more fluid than their CT side. As a rule of thumb, some combination of HooXi, huNter- and m0NESY formed the map control pack, which on Mirage means taking control of middle, with jks and NiKo playing the extremities. The most common form was HooXi and m0NESY going top middle, huNter- coming through underpass, jks holding A ramp, and NiKo in palace.

m0NESY was often utilised in a supportive manner early in the round, either throwing grenades for map control or holding a single angle for the same purpose, and he would be more proactive in searching for kills in mid-late round scenarios. By comparison, he was more aggressive early in the round on defensive halves.

As mentioned previously, there was a lot more variety in how G2 would set up in T rounds. HooXi and huNter- played together most often, with m0NESY likely to split from the pack and reinforce the other half of a bombsite split. Another common factor was seeing HooXi help set huNter- up in a deep lurk position, where he could activate later in the round. There were also, as is common, plenty of calls from spawn. The most frequently used call would see the player with the best mid spawn head fast to connector, with the rest of the squad splitting the A bombsite early in the round.

A change that seemed to have taken place between the Liquid and Natus Vincere matches was a move to favouring 4-1 splits, particularly towards A. HooXi or huNter- would work B or more commonly middle alone, with the rest of the team grouping up to form the main prong of the attack towards ramp and palace.

The style that G2 employed was also quite varied, with a combination of explosive rounds called from spawn, slower-paced defaults, and a healthy mix of B and A focused attacks. Their most common approach across both games involved splitting the A site after a default, but this took multiple forms; sometimes the majority would come through connector after a mid-centric default, sometimes the majority came through ramp after feigning heavy mid presence, sometimes everyone would come through ramp with a single mid-connector lurk.

G2 struggled on their offensive halves, whereas they were a relatively potent force on defence. Similar problems cropped up as on their CT side, but they were more strongly felt on the offensive half, where teams are required to take initiative and it is more difficult to coordinate than on CT.

Again, their mid-late round decision making was a problem. Often they were slow to coordinate and come up with a plan B if their initial approach hit a wall, or they lost the first kill. The most common mistake they made in the mid-late round came in the form of waiting to or choosing not to plant the bomb. The most obvious example of this came in round 27 of the Natus Vincere match when HooXi inexplicably chose to leave the A site with the bomb, despite his team having full control of the site and smokes up in the connector/jungle area to allow him to plant for short.

The issue of disjointed or disconnected play was also felt on their offense. Two examples of this cropped up the Liquid game, the first coming in round 20. HooXi pushed through apartments to find an open B site, but his team had already committed to the A bombsite and could not rotate so HooXi was too far away to create an effective flank. A similar situation happened in round 28, this time with huNter- towards B. In this instance huNter-'s flank was found out by NAF and he was killed, but if NAF had not been there, G2 were already too committed to the A site to rotate back to B and huNter- would have been too slow to flank A through kitchen effectively.

A huge problem on their offense was their inability to find opening kills; against Liquid they went 2-10 in opening kills on their T side, and against Natus Vincere it was 4-11. Many of these opening deaths were HooXi and considering he stated his tendency to "run in when it doesn't feel nice to run in", this is to be expected. When you combine these stats with a poor 16.4% of deaths traded across both games, it becomes clear that this G2 squad need time to drill their T sides and become more effective as a unit if their current style is to work.

G2 were far more effective on the CT side of their first games, and this is unsurprising, as it is easier to coordinate, decisions flow more naturally based on reactions to what the T side are doing, and there is less need to take initiative. jks said it best: "CT side won't be much of a problem." The T side is where G2 struggled, picking up a single round win against Liquid outside of a pistol win and conversion, and four isolated rounds against Natus Vincere. The bulk of the problem seemed to be related to coordination, and again jks alluded to this in his interview stating "…the way they react off info, the things that they like to do, I think that's more what I need to get used to."

It instinctively feels like G2’s issues, or at least many of them, will be ironed out with time and practice, especially so because they have changed two members. It is also worth mentioning that both HooXi and jks referenced the language barrier in their interviews, and particularly the former becoming used to thinking and communicating in English, which again will only come with time.

The defensive halves seem likely to be fine moving forward, requiring only tweaks and particularly a tightening up of mid-late round decision making to get them to the standard they need to be to win tournaments. The offensive halves will take more time to get right, and may even need a change in approach to become effective enough, especially with regards to finding opening kills. With the personnel in the squad and the coaching pedigree behind the team, there can be no doubt that G2 have the makings of an event-winning squad, but will they get there? Only time will tell.