G2 go 3-0 over Spirit to make Fall Final semis

Vitality and G2 will face off for the first time since the latter added malbsMd and Snax.

G2 have bagged a messy 2-0 victory over Spirit on stage at BLAST Premier Fall Final, extending their dominance over the Russian team to three series in a row with wins on Dust2 (13-9) and Mirage (16-13) to advance to the semi-finals against Vitality.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024
28/09/2024	Vitality 16:00 G2	Match

It will be the first time G2 face Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and company since adding Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa and Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski during the tournament break, having gone into it after falling to Vitality 1-2 at BLAST Spring Final.

G2's immense firepower could turn the odds in their favor this time around, but not if the team continues to struggle and fumble in advantageous positions. Even after their match against Spirit, Snax's men have a woeful 69.0% conversion of 5vs4 situations, the worst among teams in the playoffs and second-worst in the event.

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač's dominance over Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets (13-4 in head-to-head duels this series, 57-24 overall) and Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov's spectacular form on Mirage played a large part in making up the difference against Spirit, with Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia's best efforts on the second map not enough to help his team force a decider.

Despite a better start on initial gun rounds of their map pick, Spirit was a far cry from the dominant force they were at IEM Katowice and from their championship run at BLAST Premier Spring Final, with confidence issues playing into the team's failure as highlighted by zont1x in an interview after the match.

"The team and players are just not in their shape, it's just terrible," he said. "Besides that, I believe we have mental models that are just not working if you want to win championships right now, this is because I think the players are not feeling confident at the moment."

zont1x did show confidence on Mirage, playing a large part in helping Spirit to an 8-4 lead on the CT side with a 16-5 K-D. Spirit won the pistol and replied to G2's first gun round win with their own, going up 11-5, but capitulated entirely after that despite their opponent nearly dropping numerous advantages.

G2 fought all the way to overtime off the back of an immense CT effort from m0NESY, and snatched any chance of a decider away with the Russian sniper grabbing three kills in the final round to close.