Following a surprising loss early Friday afternoon, G2 Esports went on an insane win streak today to qualify for the championship losers bracket at the Call of Duty World League Dallas Open—despite the team barely having any time to prepare.
The trio of Michael “SpaceLy” Schmale, Martin “Chino” Chino, and Lamar “Accuracy” Abedi has been playing together under G2 for a little over a month, but heading into this event, the team decided to make a roster change, replacing Tyree “Legal” Glover with Jonathan “Pacman” Tucker.
Despite the roster adjustment, G2 was expected by many to be a major contender coming out of the open bracket. But in the third round of the winners open bracket G2 was stunned as the relatively-unknown team Born Talented defeated them 2-1, sending G2 down to the open losers bracket.
“It definitely was a match that we didn’t expect to lose,” SpaceLy said. “We had full confidence in winning, but us losing really showed that we had to fix a lot. Yesterday, we realized that our communication was awful, and we were underestimating how much easier communication makes the game on the whole team in general.”
Even in the face of adversity, G2 never gave up. The squad began play on Saturday in round four of the open losers bracket, but made quick work of their opponents in rapid succession. G2 swept OneChip Gaming, Final Feature Gaming, and Natural Talent before taking on the Brazilians of Merciless Gaming.
Using the momentum from all of their successive series played, G2 took down Merciless 2-1 to set up a date against iGame—formerly Team 3G—for a spot in the championship losers bracket. In a best-of-five series G2 defeated the Europeans 3-1 to advance in the tournament, while also dashing iGame’s hopes of earning the final EU spot in the CWL Global LAN League.
“[That win] felt great,” SpaceLy said. “We were just glad to finally play a best-of-five in this game. We’re using that win as motivation, and we’re just going to keep grinding.”
What started out as a rough tournament on Friday has quickly turned around into a thrilling storyline, as G2’s current win streak is unmatched by any other team from the losers bracket.
“You could imagine, after the tough loss yesterday, people were frustrated and having their doubts,” SpaceLy said. “Playing five series back-to-back and winning them definitely creates a confidence-booster for the team. Everyone is feeling good right now and is just motivated to keep it going.”
SpaceLy cited Pacman’s leadership role as one of the main factors contributing to G2’s newfound success on the second day of CWL Dallas.
“The reason we picked up Pacman is because he puts more input into the game for us,” SpaceLy said. “Let’s say I’m making play-calls in Search and Destroy and things aren’t going my way; Pacman will be there next to me to call plays. He’s been doing a great job at play-calling, asserting us in the right situations and improving our communication.”
With many more matches left to play SpaceLy’s mind is firmly set on his team’s goal of placing as well as possible in order to qualify for the CWL Global LAN League.
“Our plan right now is to place top-three to get into the league,” SpaceLy said. “We’re still in it, and we have a chance. It will be a crazy story if we make it happen, especially since we lost really early and have been in losers bracket this whole time. The only thing on our minds right now is placing top-three.”
