G2 extend undefeated LAN streak on Nuke to 12 with victory over Eternal Fire

Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen's men continued to look unstoppable as they began their campaign in ESL Pro League Season 17.

G2 took down Eternal Fire 2-0 to kick off their ESL Pro League Season 17 campaign, a star performance from Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov powering his side to a 16-9 victory on Anubis before the team needed to tighten up their defenses on Nuke to secure a 16-14 victory.

The European side continued to showcase sheer dominance despite the closer scoreline on the second map, where they initially held an 11-4 lead before Eternal Fire fought back. The victory further extends G2's offline series winstreak to 13 in a row, as well as extends their streak of wins on Nuke to 12 in a row on LAN, and 15 in a row in total.

G2's masterclass-level will be tested on Thursday as they will face Cloud9 in the upper bracket semi-final of Group A at 19:30 . The teams have not faced off against each other since the IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR, where the Russian side had emerged victorious 16-13 in a best-of-one on Mirage.

It was utter dominance from m0NESY from start to finish on Anubis, an early string of rounds from Eternal Fire doing little to halt the young Russian superstar's momentum. The Turkish team won the first pistol round and converted that into a 5-0 start, helped by an ace from Ömer "⁠imoRR⁠" Karataş, but from that point onward they quickly found themselves completely shut out of bombsites by m0NESY and G2.

The BLAST Premier World Final MVP was unstoppable for almost the entirety of the first half and powered his team to win ten rounds in a row, posting an absurd 22-5 K-D, 142 ADR, and 2.21 rating by the end of G2's CT-side effort. Another pistol victory and subsequent round conversion in the second half allowed Eternal Fire to close the gap slightly, 7-10, but pistols from Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač and m0NESY cracked open the B bombsite and got G2 right back to winning ways. The European combine had no difficulty in closing out the map from that point, with m0NESY continuing to shine bright as he clutched a 1vs2 to put his side on match point before they secured victory, 16-9.

Nuke began equally as one-sided as G2 ran rampant on the T-side, sporadic round wins from Eternal Fire doing little to inspire much confidence in them forcing a third map. The initial stages of the map weren't dominated by m0NESY this time around, with Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage and huNter- stepping up with key rounds instead, but the 17-year-old stepped up deeper into G2's attacking effort. A triple kill and 1vs2 clutch from jks gave way to a quad kill-round from m0NESY, and the utter dominance continued all the way until the end of the half, 11-4.

A pistol round win from G2 seemed to put a seal on the map, economic control on the CT-side and complete momentum resting firmly in their favor. A force-buy from Eternal Fire kept the Turkish team in the map, a win which they chained into two more rounds, but G2 got right back to winning ways once they had guns in hand and moved up to a 14-7 lead. What looked to be a swift victory for HooXi's side became anything but that as Eternal Fire found success with their methodical and slow defaults, bringing the scoreline all the way back to 14-12. HooXi emerged on top of a key 1vs1 over Yasin "⁠xfl0ud⁠" Koç to finally put his side upon match point, and that proved to be pivotal as Eternal Fire won the next two rounds only for their comeback to be cut short at the final as G2 took the win, 16-14.