G2 secure Shanghai Major semi-final spot thanks to individual brilliance

Snax and company closed out Mirage with a 16-13 victory in overtime.

G2 secured a semi-final spot at the Perfect World Shanghai Major after a thrilling 2-1 victory against HEROIC (Ancient 6-13, Nuke 13-9, Mirage 16-13).

Nikola “⁠NiKo⁠” Kovač was the star of the show on the first two maps, especially on Nuke, where he put up a 3.44 rating on the CT side to give his team a close-fought 13-9 win.

Mario “⁠malbsMd⁠” Samayoa took over as the hero on Mirage, however. He first dragged G2 out of a hole with a Tec-9 quad-kill at 6-9 down before a masterful 1v3 clutch in overtime proved to be the final nail in the HEROIC coffin.

“The match was really tough. We did a little trolling as usual, but we played well overall,” malbsMd said in a broadcast post-match interview.

G2 have secured a semi-final spot with the victory, where they will face off against the winner of Vitality vs. FaZe.

The series began on HEROIC’s pick of Ancient, where G2 got off to a quick 3-0 start. That was as good as it got for Janusz “⁠Snax⁠” Pogorzelski and company, though, as HEROIC fought back to win the first half 7-5 despite NiKo’s 18 kills.

The second half was even more dominant for HEROIC. G2 could only muster one offensive round and petered out in a 6-13 loss despite NiKo (22 kills) and Ilya “⁠m0NESY⁠” Osipov (16) doing their best to give their team a chance with some individual brilliance.

G2’s scrappy series continued on the Nuke offense, where they went down to an early 2-6 deficit. Despite losing a round to USPs, though, they rallied to go into the second half just two rounds behind.

The CT side then turned into a NiKo highlight reel. The Bosnian rifler secured a second-round forcebuy with three Deagle headshots and continued his rampage to put up 20 kills, 212 ADR, and a 3.44 rating in the second half to give his team a 13-9 win.

The Mirage decider was a close-fought affair, where G2’s double-AWP setup meant they kept the scores close with a 6-6 half. They followed that up by losing their fifth pistol round of the series to go 6-9 down, but malbsMd took over the game soon after.

He found a miraculous quad-kill to get G2’s T side on the board before winning a 1v3 in overtime to get his team over the line and into the semi-final.