MAD Lions caused the upset of the tournament so far with a 2-1 win over G2 esports. Two matches on Overtime, but MAD Lions pull ahead.
G2 came into the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown as the overwhelming favorites to qualify. A top two finish would ensure that Niko and co. would play on LAN at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen. But they could not overcome the MAD Lions squad. It was a series that could not have been closer, and it was even more exciting considering the mistakes by both teams.
MAD Lions Pick Ancient; Gets Demolished
MAD Lions picked Ancient as their map choice. Fans probably thought MAD Lions could put up a good fight, but it was a clean game by G2. The World #5 team showed us just why they are ranked so high as they demolished the MAD Lions Offense. Standing tall everytime MAD Lions decided to attack, G2 had a commendable 11-4 start.
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač was the star on Ancient with 28 kills. He had only 7 deaths and with a 2.26 rating, huNter- put up an amazing performance.
On Ancient they punished us for how we play Ancient. On Ancient we need to find openings and we didn’t do that against them. They played passive against us and we struggled against their playstyle.
Mirage: MAD Lions Bounce Back
Despite the thrashing on Ancient, B0rup and co. seemed determined to win on Mirage. The team had a better understanding of the map and they analyzed the G2 playstyle to counter them.
The match was extremely close with the first half ending in an 8-7 score.
Almost all ten players had a similar score at the end of the map. With just a few kills separating the topper of the leaderboard from the bottom fragger, it was a display of high-quality Counter-Strike all around.
MAD Lions had a strong start to the second half with five wins on the T-side. But G2 was able to bring back the score with a string of round-wins on its own. Niko had some clutch moments towards the end of the map, carrying his team to overtime.
But in Ovetime, MAD Lions simply had the better nerves and were able to play their normal game. As TMB said in a post-match interview, the players did not expect to win coming into this series. They played their normal game and were having fun. But along the way, they got a sense they could win and they were quick to pounce on that opportunity.
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Inferno - Another Overtime, Another MAD Lions win
Inferno was the final map and the decider. G2 had a strong start to Inferno with calculated moves across the map. AmaNEk was having a great game, able to hit shots, sometimes even through smokes.
But when they moved to the CT side, G2 was unable to contain the madness of MAD Lions. The players would play extremely aggr4essive, sometimes taking up real estate before using any grenades. The aggressive and often risky play by MAD Lions often worked in their favor. But there weer instances when they would lose against eco rounds, thereby giving G2 a way back into the game.
It went to Overtime, where MAD Lions had a strong CT side with B0rup getting crucial kills in one of the last rounds. This upset is the biggest one so far at the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown.
A Surprise Victory for MAD Lions
No one expected MAD Lions to defeat G2 esports. With this win, G2 are now out of the tournament and MAD Lions are one win away from a LAN appearance at Copenhagen. When asked which team he would like to face next, TMB’s answer just highlights how much of an upset this win was against G2.
I didn’t even think about our next opponents. I didn’t think we would come this far. We will take whoever we get. - TMB
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