G2 to face Falcons in elimination match after M80 upset

It took M80 nine match points, but they caused the upset in the end.

M80 pulled off the upset against G2 in a marathon series that played out over three maps with multiple overtimes on two of them. They continue through the lower bracket while G2 have just one life left in Group B.

Despite its length, the beginning of the series was a quick one, and M80 pulled out to a 1-0 lead after a 13-2 thrashing of Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and company on Ancient. A near pristine T side was followed up by a forcebuy win after the pistol round on the CT side to give G2 an early warning.

A 1-7 deficit on Inferno spelled trouble for G2 as they kept running into a wall over and over, but in the end a strong mental game turned the tide and, after hitting overtime, Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov led the way to victory with 30 kills. M80 had two match points in the first overtime, but squandered them.

Vertigo also started with a big M80 lead, 7-2 on the T side, but G2 once again shortened the distance and, miraculously, clutched their way to a tie score on the 24th round, once again denying M80 two more match points. The third map standout, though, was Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač and HooXi topping the board for G2 while Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and m0NESY struggled to find any sort of impact with little over 50 ADR each.

Over the course of the three overtimes, M80 failed to close out two more match points. "I don't want to know," Fritz "⁠slaxz-⁠" Dietrich said after the match when asked if he knew how many match points they failed to convert. "We felt like we threw so many rounds. We had it, we always needed that one round. You could just see the experience we were missing."

Elias "⁠s1n⁠" Stein and company brought it home in the end, on the ninth match point of the series, 22-19. "We noticed an energy shift, but we managed to get it back up," the German IGL said. "The battery went full again. Rory, our coach, had some nice words, and at some point I also said that they're more afraid than us. I just saw a clip with HooXi slamming the desk or something."

G2's Danish in-game leader didn't hide his frustration after the game, either. "Straight up embarrassing how we play," he tweeted right after the match.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 19
26/04/2024	BetBoom 21:20 M80	Match
27/04/2024	Falcons 13:30 G2	Match

G2, who were smashed by The MongolZ and now lost to M80, will face a team struggling just as hard or even more than them in the Last Change Stage, Falcons, for survival in the tournament.

M80, on the other hand, will get a chance at revenge against BetBoom, the team that sent them to the lower bracket to begin with. "The first time we played them we lost like six anti-ecos, so it was basically our game," slaxz- said. "Now we'll just try to rest as much as we can to be sharp, just refresh and go."