G2, NIP, & OG advances to Semi-Finals of BLAST Premier Fall Groups
Deepak Jangra
Today was the first day of BLAST Premier fall groups' play-in stage matches, where three-quarter final matches were played between:
G2 was able to secure his first win the whole tournament, especially for HooXi, the in-game leader of the team winning his first CS:GO match as a captain for the European team. However, all three matches were full of excitement and fear to lose and to getting kicked in the showdown stage.
OG vs Complexity Gaming
The first match of the knockout stage was played between Complexity Gaming and OG. Till the 7th and 8th round team OG had full control over the Ancient map while playing from T-side. Once the team swapped roles, Complexity Gaming started showing their moves in the took score from nothing to 13.
However, for Complexity Gaming it was too late as OG had already progressed towards their 16th winning round and OG wins the Ancient overall with 16 - 13, respectively.
The second map Overpass, where OG didn't let Complexity Gaming to even reach a point where they can buy everything. The Europeans had full control overall on the map as well on the North American team's in-game economy.
Overall, OG wins by 2-0 against Complexity Gaming in the quarter-finals of BLAST Premier Fall groups and advances to the semi-finals where they will face FaZe Clan.
NIP vs Evil Genesis
This was the second match of the knockout stage and hell it was an interesting match overall. It was filled with full euphoria and fear.
As no one expected such a performance from EG but they managed to make things harder for NIP in the match by winning the second map.
NIP seems to fall apart several times during their battle against Evil Genesis who have not won any tier-1 match for a very long-time.
Although the NIP wins the game, they do lose the second map in Overpass by a significant margin of 9 rounds, and considering that EG delivers a fantastic performance in ages and made them almost cry in the game. NIP needs to focus more on their strategies and overall player-wise performance as they barely handled EG in the quarter-finals. How and what would they plan against Team Liquid in Semi-Finals or maybe then Heroic who just beats the former rank #1 team in group stage matches?
G2 Esports vs BIG
This must be the main event compared to other matches of today. Although, it was expected before the match that G2 will win the match but due to their performance in the last two matches in the same tournament in Group Stage matches against Natus Vincere and Team Liquid where they lost both matches.
Things add up when you add new players to the team over other members and especially the in-game leader of the team but still, they were not managed to prove the decision right and lost their first two games, right in the beginning.
But today G2 fired back against those comments and shows everyone that they are ready for a comeback.
Also, for context about G2's new members; HooXi (Captain) and jks have joined the team less than a month ago so, players need a bit of time to make a cordination or connection with other teammates playing styles.
In an interview with James Banks during the match, HooXi explained they were practicing, and "I'm trying to make everyone comfortable in the match." Checkout the full conversation here:
The match was one-sided from the beginning and took the least amount of time if compared to all the other two matches' timings. G2 was holding the ground from the start of both maps and destroying the all attacks and defenses from BIG and won the match by 2 - 0.
G2, NIP, and OG have made it into the semi-finals of the play-in stage where they will face Team Vitality, Team Liquid, and FaZe Clan, respectively tomorrow.