Steven R. May 17, 2020
Getting second place in one of the ESL Road to Rio events is pretty good no matter how it’s sliced, right? What about if you lose in one of the quickest best-of-five grand finals ever in Counter-Strike's history?
Second-place finisher G2 earned 1,500 RMR points, moving them forward towards a spot in the ESL One Rio Major. They also got 350 points for the ESL Pro Tour, keeping them in a good position for a spot at ESL One Cologne 2020. But G2 Esports found a way to make it difficult. Kenneth “KennyS” Schrub and company took a devastating loss from Astralis in what might just be the shortest best-of-five series in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive history.
This comes with a little bit of an asterisk next to it. The ESL Road to Rio events have a different tournament format with double elimination playoffs. The team that reaches the finals from the upper bracket gains an automatic map advantage, so Astralis technically only needed to win two maps in order to take the win.
The Danish squad wasn’t getting paid by the hour though, and wasted no time in locking up the victory.
Astralis jumped out to an early lead on Nuke by winning the first seven rounds, but G2 managed to bridge the gap a bit by the end of the half. The pistol round prowess of Astralis saw them take command of the second half early on, advancing to a decisive 16-6 win.
That’s a lopsided margin, but Astralis one-upped itself in game three. A massive 13-2 first half on Vertigo put G2 into a deep hole that they couldn’t dig their way out of. G2 fell 16-2 on the map and was quickly 3-0 in the series.
The outcome puts Astralis firmly atop the European Regional Major Rankings with 2,400 points, with the 1,600 points from Road to Rio being added to the 800 from their victory in the StarLadder Berlin Major. G2 Esports jumped up into second place. They now have 1,680 points, with the 1,500 being added to the 180 they have from Berlin following roster change deductions.
Another regional major event will come this summer. G2 will undoubtedly be looking for revenge on Astralis.