G2, one of the best CS:GO teams in the world, have not survived the BLAST Paris Major Legends Stage and waved goodbye to the $1.25 million tournament following a narrow 2-1 loss to Fnatic on May 15, in which they were reverse swept.
G2’s captain Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen acted quickly and took the blame for the elimination today, thus protecting some of his star players like NiKo and m0NESY, who played below their usual level against Fnatic. Expectations for G2 to win the BLAST Paris Major trophy were as high as ever after they recovered from missing the IEM Rio Major in November 2022 with victories at the BLAST Premier World Final last December and IEM Katowice in February 2023, but NiKo and G2 as an organization will enter Counter-Strike 2 without ever winning a CS:GO Major.
“Today is on me,” HooXi wrote on Twitter following the loss to Fnatic. “The two maps we lost was mostly because of not keeping our cool and being prepared for the pressure and with that comes bad and rushed decisions. Horrible feeling that our T sides costs us after we have been doing so well. Sorry everyone, I tried my absolute best.”
Although almost everybody in the CS:GO community is talking about NiKo failing to capture a CS:GO Major trophy like other great players, the loss heavily affects HooXi as well. Not only is he the team captain and thus one of the main players responsible for their performance, but he also lost to two of his ex-Copenhagen Flames teammates—roeJ and nicoodoz.
It looked like G2 would survive against Fnatic and play for a playoff spot at the BLAST Paris Major after they won Inferno (19-16), but they saw nicoodoz and crew tie the series on Ancient (16-11) and ran away with the victory on Vertigo (16-13). Jks and huNter- were the only ones on G2’s side to finish with a positive K/D ratio, while NiKo, m0NESY, and most notably HooXi (-29 K/D) underperformed.
With this early elimination from the BLAST Paris Major, it’s more than likely that G2 will at least discuss roster changes heading into Counter-Strike 2.
