ESL Pro League S17: G2 Esports qualify for playoffs after beating Fnatic

The emotions of the ESL Pro League S17 continue, and we are ending Group A. This means that in a few hours, we will know which will be the four best teams of the group that will be present in the playoffs.

Now, the best team in the world today, G2 Esports, has been the third team in Group A to qualify for the playoffs after beating Fnatic in a tough series in the Mid Bracket Grand Final.

G2 Esports joins Outsiders and Cloud9 as the qualifiers for the tournament’s next stage. On the other hand, in the following hours, we will know the last qualified team, which will be defined in the Lower Bracket Final at 19:30 CET.

G2 Esports vs. Fnatic – Game Recap

We expected a series of the highest level, which these two extraordinary teams gave us. G2 Esports once again proved that they are at an impressive level of play. However, they were crushed on their best map in recent months, Nuke, which makes us think that this team is not as invincible as we presumed.

The best-of-three series took place on Vertigo (Fnatic), Nuke (G2 Esports), and Inferno (Decisivo) and ended with a 2-1 victory for G2.

Vertigo

Fnatic’s selection, Vertigo, undoubtedly originated due to the terrible defeat suffered by G2 Esports against Cloud9 in the Upper Bracket semifinals. However, we can point out that it backfired on Fnatic. G2 Esports corrected all the mistakes against C9 and took such revenge on Fnatic that Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov didn’t let the Swedish team breathe for a second.

With G2 Esports on the CT side, m0NESY and Justin “jks” Savage stopped each of Fnatic’s attacks and partially won in the first half 11-4. In the second half, Fnatic was surprised by winning the pistol round and managed to put the score 8-12. However, G2 recovered and made the four remaining rounds to win 16-8.

Nuke

G2’s strongest map, where we were “sure” that they would finish off Fnatic once and for all, Nuke, was an absolute nightmare for the #1s in the world.

After winning the T-side pistol round, G2 Esports made a very serious mistake in the second round that allowed Fnatic to come back to life and in what a way. The Swedes managed to crush G2 on their selected and favorite map, thanks to William “mezii” Merriman and Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi. They finished the CT side with a rating of 1.66 and 1.90, respectively, leading Fnatic to win the first half with a crushing 12-3.

G2, badly hit by this situation, could not react and fell with a score of 4-16.

Inferno

The third and decisive map started just as Nuke started, with G2 Esports winning the pistol round and Fnatic stealing the eco round with an excellent banana rush strategy. However, G2 slammed the table and said they would not allow the same thing to happen, as they immediately followed this up by winning six consecutive rounds to lift the team’s spirits. Fnatic was able to close the first half down 5-10, thanks to the experience and great level shown by Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson.

The second half was comfortable for G2, as they won their first 4 rounds to score 14-5. Finally, they managed to take the victory with a score of 16-9 with a spectacular Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, who got a K-D of 26-13 with 106.5 ADR and a rating of 1.59, according to HLTV.

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