G2 Esports is speedrunning First Stand, the first League of Legends international tournament of the year.
Having defeated Team Secret Whales (TSW) without dropping a game, G2 recorded another 3-0 series, but this time, against Bilibili Gaming (BLG), it did not go in their favour.
The LEC champions were dominated and hopelessly outplayed by the LPL’s BLG. Now, G2 will have to scrap through the Lower Bracket to try and make the Knockouts Stage by taking on the winner of BNK FEARX and TSW.
Here is a game by game breadown of how BLG dominated.
Game 1: A Familar Foe Takes Down G2
The first match was somewhat even; G2 were behind but holding their own and keeping themselves in the game.
Late into the match, G2 appeared to play a team fight really well, but BLG’s Park ‘Viper’ Do-hyeon was untouched, so G2 couldn’t break through.
G2 successfully kited out of the fight and tried to get some extra poke damage with Senna, but then Chen ‘Bin’ Ze-Bin hit a max-range Ambessa ult and triple-killed the remaining G2 members to effectively put the game out of G2’s reach.
G2 and BLG have played a lot of matches against each other over the years, and Bin making a big play to get a multikill and end G2’s hopes has become a familiar sight.
Game 2: No Caps, No Party
Bin’s form was perhaps playing on G2’s minds, especially Rasmus ‘Caps’ Winther’s, as the LEC team made awful mechanical misplays in Game 2.
Caps was having a poor series by his usual high-standards, and in the second game, he was repeatedly caught out while wasting Aurora’s ult.
Yet, the game had started fairly well for G2. By 20 minutes, they were on Soul Point and had a clear win condition, but Sergen ‘BrokenBlade’ Çelik was 3k gold down to Bin.
G2 couldn’t get the fourth Drake but managed to find a pick on Bin and decided it was now or never. Caps tried to teleport behind to force a 4v5 fight, but BLG disengaged with relative ease and then found picks of their own from a re-engage.
That allowed BLG to secure Baron and win the game to reach series-point.
Game 3: First Stand Feels Doomed For The West
The third and final game was a disaster for G2.
Just five minutes into the game, G2 were already 3k gold down as their bot-lane were completely outplayed and any jungle support was completely shut down by Peng ‘Xun‘ Li-Xun’s brilliant counter-ganks.
It was complete annihilation as G2 were being picked apart with repeated early game deaths.
However, BLG became overconfident, perhaps understandably, and it almost allowed G2 back into the game.
At 9k gold down, Caps finally came online and with some beautiful Ahri play. He managed to help his team find their first kills of the game and secure crucial shutdown gold.
BLG were still very far ahead, but Caps found a triple kill, and it looked like G2 were about to get a surprising ace.
However, Caps’ Ahri ran out of abilities to kill Zhuo ‘Knight’ Ding, who survived on a sliver of health. While trying to chase him, Knight earned a triple kill of his own to kill G2’s hopes of an unlikely comeback.
Will G2 or an LEC team ever be able to challenge at international LoL tournaments again? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
And in other First Stand news, a Brazilian streamer has apologised for his controversial Chovy interview.
