A dark night in CS:GO: Astralis and G2 fail to make Rio Major

Astralis and G2, two of the top CS:GO teams in the world, have failed to qualify for the IEM Rio Major following their setback at the Europe RMR. Both teams were eliminated from the Road to Rio: Regional Major Ranking competition after losing their respective matches to the underdogs in round four. 

After losing 1-2 against forZe today in Europe RMR, Astralis were eliminated from the IEM Rio Major. The organization will miss the Major for the first time since its debut at MLG Columbus in 2016. The Danish organization that once won three consecutive Majors seemed to have no impact in 2022. 

Astralis will miss the Major for the first time since its inception 

Astralis dominated the first half of the best-of-three series, which began on Mirage. The map, however, took an unexpected turn when forZe recovered and won 12 of 13 rounds on the CT side to defeat the Danish side 16-14. ForZe’s Alexandr “shalfey” Marenov finished first on the leaderboard with 26 kills compared to 14 fatalities, giving his team an early 1-0 lead.

Astralis attempted to mount a comeback at Nuke, but the Russian team continuously repelled their aggressive counterattacks. After an intense back-and-forth battle, forZe won 2-0, surviving the RMR for the next round. Averaging a 1.37 rating and 86.2 ADR, the 20-year-old shalfey added 26 more kills in the two-map series to complete the series with 52 kills.

Gamer Legion broke G2’s Major streak

With a 2-0 victory, Gamer Legion put an end to G2’s hope at IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR A. G2 was quite disappointed by this loss, especially since the squad had a perfect 5-0 record in the group stage of the ESL Pro League Season 16, which took place just a few days before Europe RMR B.

G2 dominated the opening round of the series, capturing their chosen map, Vertigo, 16-3. The underdogs retaliated in the second half and secured a handy 16-4 victory to move the series to the decider, Inferno. The favorites got off to a good start on the third map as they were able to hold onto a slim advantage for most of the first half. However, Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand reversed the course of the match and utterly wrecked G2’s momentum in the second half. With a staggering 30 kills and an average damage per round of 1.03, the 25-year-old propelled GamerLegion beyond the finish line with a 16-12 victory.

G2’s run of eleven straight Major appearances, which began at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015, comes to an end with the loss. On the other hand, GamerLegion are still in the competition and one more victory will take them to their first Major.

Header: Michael Konkol, BLAST