G2 Esports and Acend knocked out of Challengers 2

G2 Esports and Acend were eliminated from the VALORANT Champions Tour Challengers 2 event. The two squads were defeated in the best-of-one bracket and are no longer in contention for Masters 2 in Iceland. G2 fell 0-2 against Fnatic and Acend lost a tight two games to Team Vitality. Acend, the winners of the European Masters 1 tournament, were eliminated in the first round of the main event for the second time in Stage 2.

Both teams will begin competition in Stage 3, after the international LAN event. The rest of the field will prepare for competition on April 16, with the rest of the first round of games.

G2 emphatically fall to Fnatic

Two juggernauts from the early European scene, Fnatic and G2, faced off in the quarter finals of Challengers 2. G2 ran  substitute Oscar “ozzy” Scott in this series and the qualifications before. The British talent was brought in on one week’s notice. He replaced Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt.

The best-of-three series started on Bind, as G2 went with a slightly new composition. The team ran Astra and Sage, a new combination for the squad, with two Duelists and a Sova. The team looked out of sorts against Fnatic and struggled to win rounds. G2 opened the series with four straight round losses, ending the half down 5-7. In the second half, on offense, G2 did not win a single round. They lost 5-13.

The second map, Ascent, was much closer. Ascent is one of G2’s best maps — they have a win rate of 85% on 41 games played, according to vlr.gg. The first half was back and forth as the score was 6-6. G2 held their own on attack, but the duo of Domagoj “doma ” Fancev on Sage and Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev on Jett proved to be too powerful. Both players finished with more kills and a higher Average Combat Score as Fnatic claimed the series 13-11.

Acend’s tight series against Vitality

As Masters 1 champions, Acend came into the series off of an early exit from the previous Challengers event. The team went down to Ninjas in Pyjamas in the quarter finals over a week ago. Vitality were in the same boat, having been eliminated by FunPlus Phoenix. Both teams had something to prove and they fought till the end as both maps went to overtime.

The first game on Icebox was tight; both teams took chunks of rounds from one another. Acend won both pistol rounds, as well as the round after, but Vitality stayed competitive. In the entire map, the spike only went off twice as both teams battled for kills. Each round ended with either a full team wipe or a defusal. In the end, it was Vitality that had to force overtime in the final round. They would secure the final win and then take the first two overtime rounds to close out the map.

The second map, Haven, started out in Vitality’s favor. However, they had to force overtime in the end again. They came out of the half up 9-3 but gave Acend a three and then six round run on the attack. Vitality forced overtime on the final round and then won the first two overtime rounds yet again.

The two standouts on the squad were Bayram “bramz ” Ben Redjeb and Théo “LoWkii” Téchené. LoWkii joined the team in late March and showed great intuition on Sova. He finished the series with 44 kills. But bramz was the one that topped the leaderboard on the team, notching 50 kills on Jett.

G2 Esports and Acend are out of the Challengers 2 event and will not represent European at Challengers Playoffs or Masters 2.

Declan is an esports journalist and part-time editor for Upcomer. He is an avid gamer and League of Legends player. You can find him at the bottom of the leaderboard in most games or on Twitter.

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Source: https://www.dailyesports.gg/g2-esports-and-acend-knocked-out-of-challengers-2/

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