9INE Gets Eliminated From Gamers8 By G2
G2 defeated 9INE in a best-of-three series, dropping the first map in overtime (17-19 on Vertigo) but coming back to win the next two maps, Ancient (16-12) and Nuke (16-12), and advancing to the quarterfinals of the Gamers8 tournament. G2 were formidable throughout their first place run at IEM Cologne, but their opening fixture at Gamers8 demonstrated that they have exploitable chinks in their armor.
The European team famously blew 6-0 and 10-6 leads in the opening Vertigo map and had to fight for victory on Ancient and Nuke, nearly allowing the Poles back into the series after requiring six map and series points to pull it off.
“We lost a lot of energy in Cologne after playing in front of the big crowd and winning it especially, and this event is like seven days after,” Nemanja Bjelica said in an interview after Game 2, discussing his team’s poor start to the series against 9INE. “But there are no complaints, we are in Group D at ESL Pro League so we have one month without officials after this event, and we need to give our best like we did in Cologne and that’s the deal,” he said.
G2 will play the victor of Friday’s series between FaZe and Virtus.pro at 12:00 local time in Saudi Arabia in the quarterfinals of Gamers8.
Given that 9INE considers themselves to be one of the strongest teams in the world on the skyscraper-based battleground, Vertigo was a natural option to kick off the series. Despite this, G2 got out to the better start, with a 9-6 advantage thanks in large part to huNter-‘s strong play.
However, once it was 9INE’s turn to defend, their advantage quickly vanished. It took a quick hat trick of rounds for G2 to force overtime after the Poles sprinted to map point, 15-12, with Olek “hades” Miskiewicz performing the most of the heavy work.
After getting there, the IEM Cologne champions put up a fight, but 9INE kept pulling ahead and eventually won 19-17, adding another top-five team to their tally of home victories.
As Ancient began, the Poles kept the pressure on, with Wiktor “mynio” Kruk and hades leading the way to a 6-0 lead. It didn’t take long for G2 to get their feet, and because to huNter-‘s outstanding performance, they only trailed by one round at the half.
The Bosnian’s performance didn’t let up from then, and he finished the map with 30 frags and 103 ADR, which was vital in G2 converting their pick 16-12 and setting up a Nuke showdown.
There, everything started off as G2. By halftime, huNter- and Nikola “NiKo” Kova had led their team to a commanding 11-4 lead, with 16 and 14 kills, respectively. The Poles didn’t give up hope, going on a remarkable five-round run to cut the lead to 12-15, but G2 won the final two rounds, 16-12, to take the series, 2-1.
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