G2's second-half accelerations push them past FaZe

Snax's side put together 7-1 and 9-1 T sides in the second half of Dust2 and Mirage to force victory.

G2 have stretched their win-streak over FaZe to four series without reply after a testing tournament opener in Copenhagen.

FaZe seemed in control of the series after limiting G2 to just two gun round victories over all of Inferno and the first half of map three, but Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski's side rallied to come back from 4-8 and win 13-9 on the Mirage decider.

G2 had the economic advantage in all six halves, winning five pistols and a second-round force-buy in the other, before 7-1 and 9-1 second halves on Dust2 and Mirage confirmed their victory.

It's an important win for Snax and company, but perhaps an even more important loss for FaZe who were looking to get back on track after a bootcamp in Malta but have lost both games since, first to Complexity and now to G2.

"We didn't get to show what we worked on [vs Complexity]," Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen told James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks on stream before the game. He also expanded on the team's style, as he loosened the reins on the team after admitting he felt the need to micro-manage at Cologne.

"Sometimes as a team you don't realise how much freedom you have," karrigan said. "In Cologne, we played without freedom and afterwards in practice people enjoyed the freedom [coming back], they took more initiative. It was a situation where I went the extreme, to say 'We can go that way, but it's not the way I want to lead.'"

That work is still in progress, but there were shades of the FaZe that started the year with their streak of grand finals, as Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants hit flashy wallbangs and the team won several 2v4s and 3v5s. G2's sloppiness contributed, but 'FaZe bullshit' was back as a win condition.

Without any good starts to halves, and a poor CT performance in the few gun rounds they did have, however, victory was a bridge too far for FaZe.

G2, meanwhile, can breathe a sigh of relief after coming online just in time to win the series.

Their renowned firepower was present in moments, from Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač and Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov's Dust2 performance to a Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa ace on Inferno or Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač triple kill on Mirage. But it was actually Snax, who had just 10 kills over the first two maps, who delivered the impact frags for G2's 9-1 comeback on Mirage with several key entries on Connector and Short.

Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas was fierce in defending his IGL in a pre-game interview on stream, saying: "You cannot measure Snax's output only by frags, I am not worried about it. We need to look at it from the perspective that we have malbsMd, Snax is more setting people up than going in. Even if he has a good game he goes 9-8. He's not the type to run for eco frags and get his ego up. It's about the team."

Questions remain over the ability of Snax to knit together his stars into a unit capable of winning trophies — there was a frightening lack of cohesion in man-advantage situations at times — but those second halves mean he and G2 can take this series as a confidence boost into the rest of the tournament.