What is with the playoffs of the European division at ESL One: Road to Rio 2020? It seems like each team is putting their lives out to win the whole thing and in doing so, we are been treated with some of the most competitive counter strike we have ever seen.
As for the match up between G2 and Team Vitality we witnessed three 16-14’s confirming the high competitiveness in the European region.
Coming to map picks, Vitality picked Nuke, G2 picked Vertigo and Dust II was left as the decider.
As you may already know, every map ended in a 16-14 scoreline, you may also expect some crazy comebacks and back and forth game of counter strike.
The first map was more of a back and forth affair. G2 started on the CT side and looked solid defensively. The rotations to lower site were also on point which helped them the take a first half lead of 3 rounds. Vitality after shifting to the CT also showed great composure but their efforts were left short as G2 won the required 7 rounds on their offensive side to take Nuke 16-14. It was “kennyS” who lead the killing charts with 26 kills closely followed by “nexa’ who had 25 kills to his name.
A comeback was experienced on Vertigo as Vitality forced a third map to break G2 hearts. G2 started on T side and won 10 rounds to gain a substantial lead and almost have another chance to qualify for the grand finals. But Vitality weren’t giving up and knowing Vertigo was a T sided map Vitality grouped back and tore G2 apart with some cool executes. It was Vitality’s turn to take the map 16-14 this time and force Dust II. “RpK” was the top performer with 23 kills.
vitality started Dust II on the side with some very fast and aggressive plays to force G2 on the back foot. Dust II followed Vertigo’s pattern as this time Vitality took a 10:5 lead and looking to take the series. G2 weren’t having any of that as they won the second pistol to which Vitality responded with a force buy victory, to again which G2 responded with a force buy win of their own. With CT economy on the ropes, G2 took control stringing 7 rounds to lead 13-11.
Vitality won two rounds there after but eventually crumbled in the penultimate round. They lost the 29th round and had no economy to back them up with another buy in the last round and lost 14-16. “nexa” was the top performer with 28 kills and had a total of 72 frags across 3 maps.
G2 now have another shot of progressing to the final and will face the loser of Faze and Astralis’s match. Vitality tried their best and showed us there is potential in the “apeX” lead squad after all.
Note:- The Rio major was scheduled to take place in May 2020 but due to the ongoing pandemic the major was shifted to November 2020. The prize pool of first Major will be added to the November Major. ESL on its part have decided to host three qualification rounds in order for teams to remain at their peak. Each qualifying stage will have Regional Major Points(RMR) which will be added to determine the qualification order. Each qualifying stage will have a prize pool of $255,000 divided across the six regions. To read more about this, click here.
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