G2 Esports defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas in their first match at the BLAST Premier: World Final. With this win, G2 got revenge on the team who recently knocked them out of IEM Winter 2021 in the semifinals.
The best-of-three was characterized by an absolutely dominant performance by Nikola “NiKo” Kovač for G2. Over the course of the three maps, NiKo managed to net himself 82 kills on 1.46 rating. The next closest G2 members were his cousin Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač and François “AmaNEk” Delaunay, with 58 and 57 kills, respectively.
“Honestly, we were so sloppy the whole day and the whole game overall,” huNter- said in the post-match interview. “Thanks to NiKo, he did some amazing things.”
While G2 haven’t knocked NiP out of the tournament, they have sent them to the lower bracket. It’s an unenviable position at the best of times, but there’s also the fact that they could meet Natus Vincere, the best team in the world there. They were sent to the lower bracket by Team Liquid on Tuesday in a huge upset victory. But first, NiP will play the loser of the match between Team Vitality and Astralis.
G2 will advance to play the winner of the Vitality vs. Astralis match in the upper bracket semifinals. The team will need to find their form if they want to continue deeper into the tournament. HuNter- attributed part of their sloppiness to the recent return of their in-game leader Nemanja “nexa” Isaković after he missed IEM Winter due to visa issues. He was temporarily replaced by legendary AWPer Kenny “kennyS” Schrub.
“We will have time today to discuss what we did wrong and what we can do better tomorrow,” huNter- said.
G2 play again at 1:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 16.
