Ever since G2 Esports bought Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov from Natus Vincere, people have been wondering when will he reach his peak. Nine months after his historic transfer, it feels like he has finally arrived. And it happened when G2 needed him to shine, in the team’s ESL Pro League S16 match against FaZe Clan.
Both G2 and FaZe had won their first three EPL matches in group B and the only question in everyone’s mind was this: will G2 win another key match against FaZe, just as they did in the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals? And not only did they win. They did it in style.
G2’s performance against FaZe
G2 started the match against FaZe by removing Overpass, knowing that FaZe love to compete on it. FaZe removed Vertigo because they do not play it at all. At this point, the viewers expected G2 to pick Ancient, simply because it is their strongest map and their win rate on it is 100%. But instead, they picked Dust II, which is their second-best map.
FaZe Clan then picked Nuke, a map on which their record was 8 W – 0 L at the start of the match. After that, FaZe went on to bay Ancient and G2 decided to ban Inferno, knowing it was their weakest map. Mirage was left over and we were convinced that it would get played. But that wasn’t the case at all.
G2 started with a phenomenal first half on Dust II: 10-5. In the second half, they won again with ease, 6-2. The final score was 16-7 and every single G2 player had a positive score. In particular, m0NESY and Justin “jks” Savage, the team’s most recent acquisition, made some really good plays and finished with a K-D score of +12 and +9 respectively.
On the second map, FaZe were supposed to be unbeatable. But once again, G2 won the first half with ease (10-5) and in the second half, FaZe were not able to reverse the situation. The final score was 16-12. Once again, m0NESY played well and finished with a K-D score of +11.
He just keeps on delivering 😱
Your MVP vs FaZe is @G2m0NESY pic.twitter.com/I16DaPzYa8
— G2 Esports (@G2esports) September 10, 2022
With this victory, G2 have pretty much secured their number one spot in group B of ESL Pro League S16 and will advance to the Quarterfinals after the final match of the group stage.
We can’t say anything for sure yet, but it seems that bringing in jks was a good decision, even though the player was far from a superstar. Hopefully, the team will continue to improve and maybe give Natus Vincere and FaZe a run for their money at the upcoming IEM Rio Major. Assuming, of course, that all three teams qualify.
Header: G2 Esports