G2: The Return of the Kings

“History repeats itself.”

The Majors circuit of 2015 certainly lived up to that proverb. The same top teams made the playoffs time and again, barring PENTA and leaving room for G2.Kinguin in the next two majors. ex-TSM, now Astralis, choked in the playoffs. NA teams ended up as punching bags.

There is one story that has developed over the course of the history of the Majors: Titan has repeatedly failed to make the playoffs. Their runs at the Majors resulted in knock outs during the groups at EMS One Katowice 2014, ESL One Cologne 2014, and all the 2015 Majors. Titan never had any real issue qualifying, yet surviving the groups has always eluded the Belgian-French lineup led by Kevin “Ex6tenZ” Droolans.

Now let’s be clear; qualifying repeatedly for the Majors is in itself a feat, and something many teams fail to achieve. But for Titan, there is something wrong, leading one to consider that these results are disappointing. This is likely because VeryGames casts its shadow behind Titan, raising expectations for this team to perform. It does not help that every player that played for Titan in 2015 barring Cedric “RpK” Guipouy have reached the playoffs of a Major before with another team: Ex6tenZ with VeryGames, Richard “shox” Papillon and Edouard “SmithZz” Dubourdeaux with Team EnVyUs, Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom with Kinguin, Mathieu “maniac“ Quiquerez with Team LDLC, and Kenny “kennyS” Schrub all the way back in 2013 at the first Major with Recursive.

Not only is this disappointing, but it is also puzzling as Titan has managed to compete decently with the best teams at times, taking maps and even series off Astralis, EnVyUs, and Virtus.Pro. They combine these occasionally great results with frequent embarrassing performances against weaker teams like HellRaisers and FlipSid3. A quick glance at their inconsistent results is very glaring.

That was the story of Titan in 2015. Flashes of brilliance, combined with a strange inability to find stability against the lesser teams was their flair. Their run at the first Major of the year in Katowice was a perfect summary of that: losing a close game 14-16 against a top tier EnVyUs in a promising opening match, only to get ousted of the tournament by Penta in catastrophic one sided games. History repeated at Cologne, where they forced Na’Vi into overtime to win the game, and then lost to Renegades in the following match. At DreamHack Cluj-Napoca, it looked like the spell was on the brink of being broken. Alas, it wouldn’t happen in the deciding Bo3 against NiP; they threw a nice lead on Cache to lose the map and then got mopped up 16-1 on Dust2. In that game, Ex6tenZ only managed to claim one kill to his name. This was the epiphany of their disappointments. They came so close to advancing to playoffs, yet failed in the end.

However, that gloomy tale of Titan at the Majors may very well end and be replaced by a new one: the story of G2. 2016 brought about a significant number of improvements that forecast how well Ex6tenz’ men should perform at the Major. MLG Columbus might finally be the turning point where these players reclaim a lost title: Legends. While giving this official name to eight teams—and five times more players—every four or five months feels a bit hyperbolic and over the top, there should still be some nostalgia to it, should they go through the groups and reach the playoffs.

The most visible change after 2015 is obviously the organisation change. After Titan announced that they were ceasing operations at the end of 2015, the players (and their coach Jerôme “NiaK” Sudries) played for a little while as an orgless entity, but quickly found a new home. In an ironic turn of events, they landed in Carlos “Ocelote” Rodrìguez’s very team, G2.Esports whom had just sold its lineup to the North American FaZe Clan for a transfer fee supposedly hovering above $700,000. The irony is brimming since ScreaM was a member of G2 not that long ago, before he was acquired by Titan for a hefty amount of money as well. The importance of switching organisations is not noticeable at first, but one has to look closely at Titan’s announcement. The alleged main reason for Titan shutting down is that they didn’t nearly have the budget to support a professional CS:GO team in 2016, following the ban of Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian and the subsequent backing off of sponsors. This hints that even for the whole year 2015, Titan wasn’t in a good financial situation, and it’s hard to believe this wouldn’t have had even a slight negative impact on the players. Transitioning to a new organisation that looks financially solid and has a strong identity and image can only be an improvement. That’s one thing less to think about for the players, relieving the amount of pressure that’s on them.

Another issue that impacted Titan in 2015 was arguably the mismatch between Ex6tenZ’s approach to CS:GO and the “current meta”. 2015 was the year of the loose calling, exemplified by teams like fnatic, EnVyUs and then Kinguin/G2. Tacticians had it hard at that time; only Na’Vi and LG were able to find some success here and there based on well executed plans and coordinated team play. Tactics were often powerless against flexible and unpredictable teams sporting great aimers. In that environment, Ex6tenZ had a hard time making a difference.

Fortunately, having shox on the roster means Ex6tenZ had the opportunity to take a much welcome break with IGLing; this occurred for some time at the end of 2015 and during the first weeks of 2016. The squad has started to come together and unify their firepower. They currently have: the solid backbone of shox, capable of critical clutches, holds and entries; a discreet but solid RpK that can put the numbers when it matters; a SmithZz that recently got back to a decent AWP form; and a ScreaM and Ex6tenZ capable of holding their own and play their part. This makes for a well balanced roster, quite a change after the initial 2015 lineup that featured one of the best AWPers in the world, kennyS, and a rather lacking maniac. This resulted in incredible strengths, yet incredible weaknesses. These days, they play as a team, whether they lose or win. There’s no hyper carry, no player really lagging behind the others. Anyone can have their defining moments and show up when called upon.

With the best iteration of the roster to date, ex-Titan entered 2016 looking good once again. However, this is not the first time that this team has given that impression; they’ve already disappointed their fans after the roster shuffle during the summer of 2015. So has anything changed this time? Yes, as they had a quite decent start to the year. It does not necessarily mean that they have found incredible success, but there has been a noticeable positive trend in the results they got. They have lost fewer games to underdogs and dark horses than before. Considering them a high tier team, they’ve lost only one BoX against a “weaker” team, Copenhagen Wolves, in the DreamHack Malmo Qualifiers. They qualified for the major by going 2-0 against FlipSid3 and Tempo Storm. They’ve traded blows with Astralis, Virtus.Pro, EnVyUs. The real difference is that they can compete with the best, and establish partial dominance over their underdog opponents.

Armed with more fire and fervor than ever before, G2 will be a real threat to look out for at the Major. While it is fair to opine that they should not go far in the playoffs should they make it, there is a good chance that they will finally reach the coveted “Legends” echelon. Looking at their group, it is definitely possible. Matched with Natus Vincere, Virtus.Pro and Cloud9, only the Ukrainian powerhouse is really favored against them. Unless the Poles really wake up and enter their patented Virtus Plow™ mode, they could be the ones G2 steal the Legend spot from. Cloud9 on the other hand should not be too hard a challenge with their lackluster play still persisting, even with the addition of Jake “Stewie2k” Yip. The leadership of Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert has often been criticized as of late, and G2 should be considered favorites against them; the last time these teams met during a LAN, G2 ended up crushing them, scoring 4-1 in maps. If the trend they’ve started this year continues, they should not lose such a matchup, and can really focus on beating the Poles. They could even go all the way and upset Na’Vi, although that still seems improbable given the recent form of the latter. G2 could have had a better group, but overall the one they got is clearly manageable.

Everything is in place for the shackles to be broken.

Now it is time for G2 to show up in Columbus and do the damage.

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Writer: Ragnarork
Editor: Amazingxkcd
CSS: FO-nTTaX
Graphics: DearDave, Rick