Gaming
esports
G2 Esports’ Worlds run marks a remarkable year for Europe’s best-ever team
G2 Esports may have fallen at the Worlds semi-final stage, but it’s still been an incredibly successful year – we take a look back.
What a tumultuous year it’s been for G2 Esports. Yet, with analysts saying that they’re not the same team that we saw dominate in 2019, they still won almost everything available in 2020. Looking back, two League of Legends European Championship (LEC) titles and a World Championship semi-final appearance is a good year in anyone’s book. Looking ahead, the future only gets brighter for the best Lol team that Europe's ever produced.
2020 started out with an experiment. After being almost unstoppable last year, Rasmus ‘Caps’ Winther and Luka ‘Perkz’ Perkovic decided to swap lanes to see if they could do it again. Perkz went back to his natural mid lane, while Caps tried out bot lane in a professional setting for the first time. There were ups and downs as both players tried to fit into their new roles, with Caps certainly getting better as time went on.
Losing to Misfits and Schalke 04 partway through the spring season was a blip, but other than that G2 stormed their way to another first-place finish with a record of 15-3, setting themselves up for a play-off run. However, they ended up losing their first match to MAD Lions, sending them down to the unfamiliar territory of the lower bracket. However, that’s where they really started to shine, beating Origen 3-1 and then getting revenge over MAD Lions in the semi-finals to reach the LEC finals once again.
There, they faced old foes Fnatic, expecting another tense and exciting encounter. In reality, it was their easiest match of the play-offs as G2 appeared back to their best, sweeping aside Fnatic with a 3-0 to lift their third European title in a row. However, despite the win, that was the end of the lane-swap experiment. Perkz and Caps went back to their original roles for the summer as G2 started their road to Worlds.
Perkz and Caps swapped roles and still had success in Spring
© Riot Games/Flickr
The 2020 summer season was surprising in a lot of ways. LEC fans saw the rise of Rogue and MAD Lions, the “miracle run” from Schalke 04 and the apparent downfall of the usual top teams such as Fnatic, Origen and even, at first, G2. They had a rough start to the season, and some personal issues during the middle meant Perkz sat out a few games, but finally G2 started to build some momentum as they headed towards the play-offs.
In the first round, they beat MAD Lions once again and faced Fnatic in what was a complete reversal of their previous encounter. In one of the most exciting series of the year, Fnatic ended up coming out on top 3-2. The following week, G2 had another five-game thriller against Rogue in the lower bracket semi-final, winning that to set up the much-expected showdown with Fnatic again in the final. G2 activated their “big-game buff” in their final match of summer, sweeping Fnatic 3-0 again and claiming their fourth LEC title in a row.
After making it to the Worlds final in 2019, G2 went hunting for that elusive trophy again. Things started off well, as they took down Suning in a back-and-forth opening game, hoping that they'd put the LEC’s troubles against Chinese teams behind them. However, they lost the return game and the eventual tiebreaker, meaning G2 went through to the quarter-finals, but as the second seed.
Up against Gen.G, G2 picked up the pace. Much like they'd done in the LEC finals earlier in the year, they quickly ended a 3-0 sweep, storming into the semi-finals. This time, though, they came up against DAMWON Gaming from Korea, considered one of the best teams in the tournament. G2 did win a game, but that’s where their Worlds journey ended, as DWG won 3-1 to reach the final.
However, for the second year in a row G2 were back-to-back LEC champions and for the second year in a row they'd made it further at Worlds than any other European team. Europe’s quest for another Worlds title goes on, but the silver lining for G2 is that they still look like the most likely team to make that dream come true.
Individually, their players are phenomenal. As a group, G2 are still one of the best teams in the world. In 2021, they’ll be hoping for more consistency, but they'll be favourites to win everything Europe has to offer again. At times this year they didn’t appear to fit into the meta, so next year don’t be surprised to see them go back to their innovative, meta-breaking style that was so successful for them in 2019.
But for now, they’ve got the next few months to take a well-earned break. It’s been a tough year, filled with ups and downs, but G2 still came out on top most of the times it really mattered. Adversity never gets them down, so everyone knows they'll be refreshed and raring to do it all again in January.
