G2 Esports are the winners of IEM Cologne

G2 Esports entered IEM Cologne with very low expectations. Or at least, they were certainly not regarded as one of the favorite teams after what happened in BLAST Premier: Fall Groups, IEM Dallas, BLAST.tv Paris Major, and ESL Pro League S17.

The team’s last great result dated back to early February, when they won IEM Katowice. But thanks to Nikola “NiKo” Kovac’s amazing form, G2 triumphed once again at the highest level of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

We don’t know how many tournaments we have left until Valve officially launches Counter-Strike 2, so every one of them might be the last. Naturally, every CS:GO team wants to be the one to close the game’s history book and earn the prestige that comes with such a performance.

G2’s run

G2 started the tournament with a very impressive series of victories. They defeated Astralis (2-1), FaZe Clan (2-0), and then Team Vitality (2-1) to win group B.

In the playoffs, where things should have become a lot more difficult for them, the exact opposite happened. In the semifinals, G2 encountered Astralis for the second time at this tournament and defeated them in two quick maps: 16-12 on Ancient and 16-9 on Inferno.

No less than three G2 members had remarkable scores in this match. Meanwhile, Astralis were able to rely only on Benjamin “blameF” Bremer and Nicolai “device” Reedtz. The other three players had modest performances.

This one’s for the #G2ARMY
We could not have done it without you ❤️🤍🖤 pic.twitter.com/TkniAzU4ra

— G2 CS (@G2CSGO) August 6, 2023

In the Grand Final, G2 encountered ENCE, whose run at this tournament was completely miraculous given their relatively modest roster. Other teams have numerous legendary players but still lost against ENCE again and again.

The Grand Final was, for the most part, anticlimactic. The scores speak for themselves: 4-16 on Nuke, 10-16 on Mirage, 16-13 on Anubis, and 9-16 on Ancient. Apart from losing the third map, G2 heavily dominated the match and left no doubt in anyone’s mind that they are worthy of this trophy.

Two players had a much better performance than anyone else on the server: NiKo (91-53) and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov (92-52). By any standard, ending a Grand Final with a +40 score is very impressive.

NiKo ended up receiving the MVP award for the tournament because of his overall performance. Later he declared that this was his best form of his entire career. Hopefully, both NiKo and m0NESY will continue to play like this and keep G2 at the top until the arrival of Source 2.

Header: G2 Esports