Melany M. June 28, 2019
G2 Esports started Rift Rivals 2019 with a win.
The Mid-Season Invitational champions continue to dominate the international stage, kicking off the event with a convincing victory over Cloud9. The win kicked off what was a strong day one for the LEC side.
Prior to the event, the G2 players hinted that they would utilize unorthodox picks and strategies. They delivered on their promise and showed the flexibility of the squad with a role swap between top laner Martin “Wunder” Hansen and bottom laner Luka “Perkz” Perković.
By comparison Cloud9 played a standard game and went with Sona and Taric in the bottom lane. That composition hasn’t been effective against G2 in the past and that didn’t change here.
Wunder and Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle punished Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam in the bottom lane. The rest of G2 followed suit and pushed the tempo of the game with extreme aggression across the map.
C9 tried and failed to keep up with G2’s pace. Jungler Robert “Blaber” Huang couldn’t impact any of the lanes while Eric “Licorice” Ritchie was doing little more than surviving.
G2 was quick to rotate, regroup, and split the map. Cloud9 had no answer to any move they made and things eventually reached the point where G2 were so far ahead they could do whatever they wanted with no risk of reprisal. 17 minutes into the game, G2 destroyed the top lane inhibitor and by 20 minutes they had a 15,000 gold lead.
Though the game was well out of reach, G2 refused to put Cloud9 out of their misery and spent several minutes seemingly toying with them. The European squad padded their kill total, with the end not coming until minions knocked down the Cloud9 nexus.
It was an excellent showing from G2 and one that hints that the LEC is positioned to dominate Rift Rivals. G2 will return on day two to face Team Liquid in a rematch of the MSI grand finals.