G2 move past VP to earn EPL playoff spot

The European combine will face Complexity for a chance to advance directly to the quarter-finals.

G2 earned a spot in the playoffs of ESL Pro League Season 18 after defeating Virtus.pro 2-1 in the upper bracket, winning Mirage 16-6 and Ancient 16-5 on either side of a 10-16 defeat on their own pick of Inferno.

The victory puts G2 through to the upper bracket final of Group D, where they will face Complexity to determine who will skip directly to the quarter-finals of the playoffs. Virtus.pro, meanwhile, have been cast down to the lower bracket and will take on Eternal Fire to avoid heading to the Last Chance stage.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
22/09/2023	Eternal Fire 16:00 Virtus.pro	Match
24/09/2023	Complexity 16:00 G2	Match

Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen was once again in fine form at the start of the series but dropped off drastically in his individual level on both Inferno and Ancient, with the team instead relying on powerful fragging from Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov across all three maps and the assistance of Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač to close things out on Ancient.

The IEM Cologne champions looked unstoppable when they took to the server on Mirage, a stalwart defense locking Virtus.pro out of bombsites and leading to multiple save situations in the first half. The Russian squad mustered just six rounds to their name before victory was sealed away by HooXi's men, moving things on to Inferno.

A slow start on the CT side left G2 little room to work with on their map pick as they went down 3-8 early on. They still clawed back to bring themselves within one round of Virtus.pro at halftime and briefly put themselves in a position to steal the momentum in the second half, winning a force-buy on round 17 and converting that into a tie game a 9-9, but strong retakes by VP and constant bullying of NiKo in banana quickly locked G2 out from securing a 2-0 victory and forced an Ancient decider.

There, HooXi called a masterclass on the T side. His individual level didn't recover, but it wasn't needed, thanks in part to m0NESY and the rest of G2's riflers ripping Virtus.pro apart for most of the first half. Virtus.pro scraped together three rounds somewhat early into the half, but were left scrambling for the remainder of their defensive effort as G2 led 11-4 at the break before closing things out shortly after the side swap, 16-5.