G2 final team to Major over Cloud9

The last match of the ESL One Cologne Main Qualifier in Katowice, Poland was between Cloud9 and G2, with the French-Belgian team previously standing at 5-1 in head-to-head lineups against the North American Cloud9 roster.

It was a very definitive Cloud9 CT pistol hold that shut down G2's execute and Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert and his team moved forward to 3-0. The first gunround meanwhile went G2's way thanks to nuanced entries.

Cloud9 still had the economy to buy up and it was Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip who had the intuition to wallbang Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon through the squeaky door of A site and also go ahead and get two more kills during G2's B take; this round put Cloud9 up 4-1 and reset G2's economy.

The next round saw G2's star shox situated in one of his favourite sightlines on the map, the forklift to truck angle on A site, and the 24-year-old picked up an ace (including a swift one tap and a one-versus-two) to keep G2 alive in the first half.

shox's ace, and his subsequent impact in the next few rounds afterwards, gave G2 the verve and confidence they needed to start overrunning Cloud9 (especially on A site), and they moved ahead to a 7-4 lead which forced Cloud9 to call a tactical timeout.

The pause clearly had some impact as Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham and Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White anticipated a G2 fast B take and sprayed down the entire team amongst themselves. And it was actually team leader Slemmy who continued to have an impact on many rounds, with Cloud9 ultimately finishing the half up 8-7.

Deadly duo shox and Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom teamed up to sweep Cloud9 under the rug on the second pistolround, with the former player hitting 23-12 with a 1.95 rating merely eighteen rounds in. With the score 10-8 for G2, the first gunround of the second half seemed as if it were in Cloud9's favour but a perfect A retake from G2 worked out.

shox picked up yet another ace in the game, using the M4A1 to deadly effect on the 21st round and moving the score up to 13-8. With Cloud9 having lost every single round on their T-half, the North American team continued buying up, and continued losing their site takes until G2 won the map 16-8.

This loss marks n0thing's first non-attendance at a Major in CS:GO and also the first time Cloud9 as an organisation will not be at a Major since they signed a CS:GO team. shox of G2 was similarly fighting to keep his attendance of every single Major to date alive.

ESL One Cologne 2016 Main QualifierBest of 1

Cloud9

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12th June 2016

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G2	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Richard 'shox' Papillonshox	34 - 15	+19	143.5	2.22
Adil 'ScreaM' BenrlitomScreaM	20 - 13	+7	91.0	1.38
Alexandre 'bodyy' Pianarobodyy	13 - 13	0	66.2	1.07
Cédric 'RpK' GuipouyRpK	11 - 13	-2	46.1	0.89
Edouard 'SmithZz' DubourdeauxSmithZz	9 - 17	-8	38.8	0.67

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Jake 'Stewie2K' YipStewie2K	23 - 21	+2	111.4	1.41
Alec 'Slemmy' WhiteSlemmy	17 - 18	-1	77.5	0.94
Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamSkadoodle	15 - 15	0	61.6	0.90
Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbertn0thing	10 - 18	-8	54.7	0.72
Mike 'shroud' Grzesiekshroud	6 - 15	-9	25.6	0.46

The current list of qualified and Legends teams at the ESL One Cologne Major is:

Legends	Challengers
Luminosity	MOUZ
Natus Vincere	FaZe
Liquid	OpTic
CLG	Envy
Virtus.pro	Gambit
fnatic	Dignitas
Astralis	FlipSid3
Ninjas in Pyjamas	G2

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter