Gaming
Gaming
Get the inside story behind G2's 2020 Six Invitational run
G2 came out swinging at the 2020 showpiece in Montreal, but couldn't make it three successive titles in a row. We caught up with the team to capture their remarkable highs and lows so far.
The 2020 Six Invitational, which took place in Montreal, Canada earlier this month, is a celebration of Rainbow 6 Siege, the community and the competitive scene. If the Six Invitational was Siege's Champion's League, then G2 have become the event's Real Madrid.
Very few teams in any sport are good enough to lift the trophy of the biggest event in their discipline back-to-back, but G2 are a rousing exception. Back when they still played under the PENTA banner, the team – anchored around Niclas 'Pengu' Mouritzen and in red hot form, having won a string of Pro League finals – were invited to 2018's Six Invitational.
2018’s major showpiece, which saw the team dominate a very strong Evil Geniuses roster that included three members of 2017-winning invitational team Continuum, was electric. Fast forward a year and 2019's win was a much simpler affair: G2 smashed Team Empire in a 3–0 romp.
"It's funny," says G2's in-game leader Fabian 'Fabian' Hallsten. "When we won the first time in 2018, it was a comeback, a series that went 3–2. It was wild. I didn't really know how to grasp it. The adrenaline had such an impact, we just didn't know what was going on." If 2018 felt fast for the team then 2019 was practically warp speed. In fact they barely had time to blink. "I was like, 'Is it over?'," jokes Fabian. "We couldn't put a foot wrong in that match. There wasn't much we had to fight for, it all just went our way."
G2 Esports made history with back-to-back Six Invitational wins in 2019
© Ubisoft/Rainbow Six Siege
Juhani 'Kantoraketti' Toivonen joined PENTA shortly before the roster moved to G2. On attack, he's an entry fragger, one of those trusted to barrel in the door first during a competitive round of siege and get kills against the odds. His first time lifting the Six Invitational trophy came in 2019 and capped off a solid streak of wins, with G2 securing tournament victories at 2018's Siege Major Paris, the Pro League Season 8 finals and then Dreamhack Winter 2018.
G2 seemed unstoppable and while Kantoraketti says the feeling of winning a Six Invitational was "impossible to put into words", he describes playing for a top tier team as his dream job. Unfortunately however, the Invitational 2019 was the last tournament G2 would win.
Roster changes to G2's core lineup saw both Daniel 'Goga' Mazorra Romero and Joonas 'jNSzki' Savolainen leave the team. Esports teams, often comprised of just five players, are susceptible to having golden periods with certain rosters, losing effectiveness when a player, or players, leave. This has seen Counter-strike teams like Astralis, NIP and SK Gaming become dominant forces until roster changes mixed things up for the worse.
G2 took these roster changes as an opportunity to try out some new things, but ultimately saw the Siege team beset by disappointing results and as more teams started to qualify for the Six Invitational 2020, G2 missed several key opportunities.
Pengu and SirBoss show the love
© Kyle Miller/G2 Esports
Even so, down but not out, the 16th slot for the Six Invitational was a wildcard and G2 managed to snag a seat at the table with some great performances. The returning champions were back to challenge for their title. Even though they looked like underdogs, their #G2Army fans were vocal, whether roaring support on Twitch and Twitter, or screaming encouragement from the stands.
G2 benched Cryn, a player they'd signed three months previously and who was tearing up the Challenger League, but failed to fit into the role that G2 needed from him. "He was a great player and a great personality outside of the game, too," adds Fabian. "He was a better player than the statistics showed."
In Cryn's place was SirBoss, signed on a loan deal – common in the footballing world, but very rare for Esports. It left the team two weeks to get themselves ready for one of the most important tournaments of their career. No mean feat.
It's fair to say that G2 came out swinging. After winning a best-of-three series against both BDS and Team Reciprocity, they finished their group 2–0. Their unbeaten record at the Six Invitational had been maintained and G2 looked dominant again.
Next up was Fnatic. Fabian was confident, saying: "If teams can't beat us, they don't deserve to be here. It's that simple. We're not feeling any pressure and it's freeing us up to play our game and experiment with it. We played Tachanka in a match – who does that in the biggest tournament of the year?"
Confidence going into the Fnatic match was high. "If we show up and play a good game, we can beat anyone, even if we have a substitute with just over a week of practice," added Fabian.
The fairytale, though, was about to end. Fnatic took the win, costing G2 their first-ever series at the Invitational, followed by a second against the Latin American team Ninjas in Pyjamas, who would make it all the way to the finals before being dispatched by Spacestation Gaming, the new Rainbow Six Siege world champions. G2 were out.
Still, the queues didn't stop and neither did G2. Esports teams can often take a loss hard, ducking the rest of the event and doing little promotion while they work out what's next. G2 were front and centre however, posing for photos with players, signing posters, mouse mats and shirts, and having a good time.
As back-to-back champions, G2 had enormous pressure to perform
© Kyle Miller/G2 Esports
Ferenc 'SirBoss' Mérész, with the team on loan, has found getting to grips with G2's fanbase an interesting challenge. "I got a lot of love from the fans. It was surprising, because that's new for me – I'm not that big yet and I'm not really on social media. It was really nice."
SirBoss was excited at the chance to get back to the top-level after previously having been benched from PENTA. "I'm very happy that I got this opportunity," he says. "In my opinion, they're the best team for me to play with and learn from, plus they got invited to participate at the biggest event in Siege."
Despite defeat, Fabian and the rest of G2 still spent time with fans
© Kyle Miller/G2 Esports
Meanwhile, Thomas 'Shas' Lee, the team's manager, coach and organising powerhouse, was coming to terms with the loss and how he thinks the team can regain form. He's nothing if not refreshingly candid.
"I think about the dominant team we've been. We're used to a very high standard of play, as well as competitive success," he says. "Obviously, since [Rainbow Six Siege major] Raleigh, there have been a few qualms over why we're not performing as well as we should be and that’s resulted in us moving people between roles."
Shas describes moving players between roles, something that even saw them scrim with Kantoraketti as a hard breacher. "We've gone through a patch where we've been somewhat uncertain," he admits. "I think that's one of the reasons why we didn't go far in this tournament, because we're constantly changing rather than establishing a foundation and then building on it.
"I think we need to go back to the drawing board. We're thinking of moving everybody to one city, because that will increase the quality of our practice," he continues. "Our work together is ridiculously better in person compared to online. I also think that we're willing to innovate. We're still one of the best teams at just kind of going on the fly and trying something new.
"Sua [one of G2's analysts] and I have been talking about how we can improve in both our analysis and coaching to be more effective – engaging players in a proactive way rather than dictating things to them, because if we played on stage like we played in scrims we'd have made it further. Unfortunately, it just didn't pan out."
Currently Shas is looking forward to another season in the Pro League. "For me, Europe is the best place to be, because if you're going to create an absolute diamond, it needs to be under constant pressure and that's what this region gives you," he says.
Since the Invitational, G2 has shaken things up again. Fabian and SirBoss have left the team, with Ben 'CTZN' McMillan joining from Natus Vincere and Jake 'Virtue' Grannan from Fnatic. Virtue is only the second player to ever transfer between the APAC and EU regions. The new team, true to form, is something unique: boasting five fraggers and no supports, it's a change that could see the meta of the game mixed up forever.
While the fairytale of winning three Six Invitationals back-to-back might be over, the dream for G2 of coming back as the dominant team and operating at full strength has just begun.
