G2 looked superb at times during Dreamhack Tours, but can they match that performance against stronger opposition?
G2 have been on quite the rollercoaster ride since making changes to their roster back in February. The new line-up was ranked 14th in the world by HLTV at the time, dropping as low as 16th in early April. But since mid-April they have been trending upwards and the French team finally broke into the top five in the most recent ranking update thanks to their victory at Dreamhack Tours.
Their journey through the Dreamhack bracket followed a strangely similar trajectory. A first round defeat at the hands of Tricked definitely seemed like a bit of an upset. There is no shame in losing to the Danish side, although they did fail to win a single game after that, but the manner of G2’s defeat must have set alarm bells ringing for fans and players alike. It’s one thing to lose to a decent tier-two team, but to go down 16-7 must have been worrying. Maybe the trip back from the previous weekend’s event in Austin had caught up with them, I wondered, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone.
At that event, G2 had started slowly and ended in 3rd place. A defeat to Cloud 9 in their first match was not expected and even though they beat the Americans later in the tournament it was far from convincing. They even dropped a map to Liquid, definitely not the stuff that super teams are made of. Overall, third place was not a bad finish, but for a team with such lofty aspirations it felt like it was about time for them to start living up to the name.
If the alarm bells were set off by Tricked, this time G2 listened. In the following match they put their fellow countrymen to the sword, looking particularly dominant on Cobble where they won 16-8. Better yet, Kenny didn’t even have to do much. The legendary sniper had the lowest score on his team against Envy and they still won convincingly. It boded well for them going into the business end of the tournament.
In the semi-final against Mouseports, things got off to a great start for G2. On their map, Overpass, they were rampant. A 16-8 scoreline in no way flattered them and even on Cache, things were looking good. On Mousesports’ map, the French took a surprising 10-5 lead playing on the T side but then came signs of another slip-up. Mousesports just kept on winning rounds on their own T half and G2 started to look anxious. The Germany-based team did indeed pick up the necessary 11 rounds to complete an unlikely comeback and tie up the match.
Overcoming adversity is what makes a champion team. We see it in traditional sports all the time, and we saw it in Astralis at the last major when they came back from a deficit to win the grand final. G2 weren’t in the final yet but they would definitely have to show a strong mental game to get over shocking defeat on Cache.
Then they loaded Cobblestone and the French team never looked back. Any scars from the previous map were gone, and G2 annihilated their opposition. 16-6 really does tell the story of how one-sided this game was and this time Kenny shone. He ended the map on 22/11 and averaged 100 damage per round. Yep.
The final could only ever go one way really, couldn’t it? In front of a home crowd, on the brink of making a strong anti-fascist statement in an election, the French team were bound to win. And win they did, starting this match as they had finished the last. G2 was even more dominant in the first half of Cache, going up 12-3 as CT but this time there were no mistakes in the second half and they were up 1-0 in no time.
Oddly, it was their strongest map - Cobblestone - that nearly tripped them up. After winning 10-5 on their CT half, it took them right up until the final round of the map for the to close it out and claim their victory
And so we’re still left wondering: how good is G2? They won a tournament but one with only eight teams and not particularly strong ones on the whole. They looked dominant at times and shaky at others. Essentially, G2 did what was necessary. They were good enough, but it will take success at a more prestigious tournament to really be considered a great time. They proved that they had the talent and the chemistry, now they just need to show it regularly.
Images courtesy of DreamHack Flickr / Jussi Jaaskelainen
