NRG Esports and G2 Esports are just one victory away from locking in a spot in the League of Legends World Championship 2023 knockout stage. Both teams can be happy with the draw as this is their best chance of securing the third win; however, it��s fair to say that G2 Esports are in a better spot to come out ahead.

NRG Esports have so far beaten just Team Liquid and the inconsistent MAD Lions, which doesn��t prove anything, and it doesn��t make them equal to other 2-1 teams. However, while G2 Esports have defeated Dplus KIA and Weibo Gaming, they didn��t look clean in either match and could��ve easily lost both.

Talent-wise, G2 Esports are far ahead of NRG Esports across all positions, but we could��ve said the same thing for NRG Esports�� previous three opponents. NRG don��t necessarily win through individual talent but instead rely on teamwork and flexibility, which makes them a threat to any team.

G2 Esports should win, but NRG Esports have side choice, which in the current meta is a considerable advantage. It might not be enough for NRG to cause an upset, but they can win one map.

Bilibili Gaming and T1 have both looked very good this tournament. T1 had a shaky start against Team Liquid, and they got crushed by Gen.G, but then produced a very inspiring game against Cloud9.

Bilibili Gaming, on the other side, have already beaten KT Rolster and Fnatic, while their only defeat of LoL Worlds came against JD Gaming – who BLG have yet to defeat this season (0-8). These are both elite LoL esports teams; however, while T1 shouldn��t be ignored, Bilibili Gaming look much stronger.

BLG are arguably a top-three team in the world, and they have the results to prove it. Bilibili Gaming would��ve won the Mid-Season Invitational and at least one LPL split if JD Gaming didn��t exist, so their lack of trophies this season only comes down to the fact that BLG can��t seem to defeat JDG.

Since T1 have side choice, this game is trickier to predict, but we have more faith in Bilibili Gaming��s individual talent.

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The Counter-Strike team defeated SAW 2-1 in the finals of the European open qualifiers, rounding off the team list in the anticipated Gamers8 2023 tournament.

The $1 million Gamers8 Counter-Strike event will run August 16 to August 20 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

9INE will join teams like Vitality, Heroic, and Fnatic, who won the inaugural European Open qualifier to claim a spot. 9INE faced off against sYnck and Team Spirit on the first day of the qualifiers before advancing to day two and beating out Aurora and 1WIN to move to the grand finals against SAW.

The series started on Ancient, which 9INE won 16-10 before SAW tied 1-1 with a 16-8 victory on Vertigo. 9INE were able to secure a win on Anubis, reaching 10-5 at map half and 16-8 by the end of the map to close the series 2-1.

Besides Gamers8, 9INE are slated to participate in other tier-one LAN events like the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne Play-in later this month. The Hussar Cup is also among their list of upcoming events in addition to an ESL Pro League Season 18 campaign in Group D.

Multiple high-profile CS:GO squads like Astralis and MOUZ failed to secure spots in the Gamers8 event. Astralis were beaten in the RO16, while Ninjas in Pyjamas faced an overtime defeat when facing SAW in the quarter-final stage of the qualifiers.

MOUZ, on their end, were eliminated in the third round of the Gamers8 Europe open qualifiers following a 6-16 loss to 1ADL. Bad News Eagles also failed to secure a place after losing to Sashi 10-16 in the qualifiers.

The list of teams for Gamers8 CS:GO includes:

• Heroic
• G2
• FURIA
• FaZe
• Natus Vincere
• Virtus.pro
• Cloud9
• MIBR
• Apeks
• fnatic
• ENCE
• Liquid
• Falcons
• fnatic
• GamerLegion
• 9INE

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G2 Esports, TSM and FaZe Clan, three fan favorites in the region, have received direct invitations to compete in the Challengers event and will not have to qualify through the open qualifiers, which begin on January 9th. These teams have all proven themselves as formidable competitors in the Valorant scene and their presence at the Challengers event is sure to make for some exciting matches. They will be joined by Shopify Rebellion, The Guard, and newcomers M80.

All of the directly invited teams, with the exception of M80, did not succeed in securing partnerships with developers and tournament organizers Riot Games in order to compete in the North American international league, which is set to begin in February with a kick-off tournament.

The Valorant Challengers circuit will feature a number of good teams from across the globe, all vying for a chance to prove themselves on the competitive stage. The tournament will kick off with a series of online qualifiers, with the top teams advancing to the main event.

The invited teams will be joined by six teams, four of which will be qualifying for the league through the open qualifiers, set to take place from January 9th to January 13th. Another two teams will earn a spot through the last chance qualifier, set to take place on January 17th and conclude on January 22nd. The first split of the Challengers league will begin on February 1st and conclude on March 17th.

A number of teams were not directly invited to the Challengers league. One such team was Dark Ratio, which had previously been linked with MAD Lions but ultimately did not receive an invitation. Additionally, Valorant streamer Disguised Toast’s Challengers team will also be required to compete in the open qualifier for the possibility of making it to the main event.

At the end of the season, two teams will qualify for the Ascension tournament through the Challengers playoffs, which are scheduled to take place from May 31st to June 10th. These teams will then have the opportunity to compete against the top teams from other Challengers regions for a chance to earn a spot in the Americas international league in 2024.

The Valorant Challengers event is just the latest in a series of major Valorant tournaments, with more on the horizon for the rest of the year. The competitive Valorant scene is heating up, and with top teams like G2 and TSM in the mix, fans can expect some thrilling matches and nail-biting finishes in the coming weeks. Esports betting sites are yet to reveal betting odds for the tournament as the complete number of teams are yet to be attained.
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The two teams have now locked up two of the final three spots available via the BLAST Leaderboard, which is a points ranking based on teams�� placing at top-tier events throughout the year.

Now OG have been knocked out of the BLAST Premier Fall Final in last place, it means that G2 and Heroic cannot be displaced from the top six on the BLAST Leaderboard.

There are only two more spots left to determine, one going to the BLAST Premier Fall Final winner and the other reserved for the BLAST Leaderboard.

However, an extra spot from the BLAST Leaderboard will be given if Natus Vincere, FaZe Clan, Heroic, or G2 are victorious in Denmark, as they have already qualified for the World Final.

The three teams that are fighting for those last two remaining spots are OG, Team Liquid, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. OG are the highest-placed team, but they cannot gain any more points after their early exit from the Fall Final.

Liquid are next in line, having reached the semis, which means Ninjas in Pyjamas now need to win the tournament in order to qualify.

So far six teams have qualified for the BLAST Premier World Final, leaving two spots up for grabs, with the showpiece event to get underway on December 14 in Abu Dhabi.

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Due to the backlash, as well as the organization losing out on their Valorant partnership spot, Rodriguez announced his decision to step away from the company he built from the ground up. According to reports, Riot Games was attempting to force the former CEO to sell the stocks he owned in the company.

If Rodriguez does this, the G2 founder will officially have no ties whatsoever with G2, which could be what the game developer is aiming for. Besides their Valorant team, G2 also have a roster for the League of Legends esports title, which was also developed by Riot. The organization are deeply immersed in the League of Legends European Championship and have won several trophies in the esport for the past number of years.

The source of the news, Yuste from Esportmaniacos, claimed G2 were apprehensive of losing out on their LEC spot, hence their compliance with Riot. Yuste also said that he was yet to have another source confirm the news.

“Some people said some were scared of also losing their LEC spot,” Yuste said.

“According to information that was relayed to me, it seems��and I wish I had another source to confirm it��but it seems Riot came to G2 and said, ��Ocelote [Rodriguez] is blacklisted. He can��t be a part of anything that involves Riot.�� And it seems��though I don��t know��but it seems Ocelote had to sell his shares in G2. That��s why in his video he said he no longer has ties with G2.”

If the as-of-yet unconfirmed report is accurate, this will be Riot Games�� most high-profile blacklisting incident involving a managerial member of a participating esports team. The game developer has placed a number of sanctions on the owners of organizations with teams in their ecosystem over the years.

Riot��s most recent sanction was placed against the owner of TSM, Andy ��Reginald�� Dinh. At the time, Reginald was fined $75,000, mandated to attend sensitivity training, and underwent two years of probation.

Neither Riot Games nor Rodriguez has confirmed or denied the reports. However, the head of League of Legends esports in EMEA, Maximilian Peter Schmidt, has debunked the report, calling the news false. Schmidt took to Twitter and revealed that Riot never forced Rodriguez to sell off his G2 shares.

“Hey everyone, I saw several false rumors regarding G2 & Carlos and wanted to clarify: The LEC has not requested Carlos to resign from G2 nor divest his ownership. We opened an investigation last week per our LEC rules, which is still ongoing.”

G2 as a whole are yet to say anything concerning the situation and made their last formal announcement-to-date when the company revealed that they accepted Rodriguez��s resignation.

Rodriguez��s recent resignation from the esports company comes on the heels of the former CEO��s post, which showed him hanging out with Andrew Tate, a controversial public figure as well as an alleged human trafficker. The video unsurprisingly led to a horde of criticism from the esports community as well as Rodriguez��s own colleagues.

In response, the G2 Esports founder took to Twitter to defend his actions and said, in no unclear terms, that no one had the right to dictate who he could associate with. His words drew more backlash, and a day later, G2 released their first official statement. At that point, the company revealed that they were against any form of unjust treatment of women and announced Rodriguez��s eight weeks of unpaid leave.

The entire situation seemed to get worse for the esports team from there, as they were denied a spot on Riot Games�� partnered teams. Despite being one of the leading teams in the esport, G2 reportedly lost out on the placement as a result of Rodriguez��s recent antics. The incident cost the organization millions of dollars.

Not long after Riot Games announced their 30 partnered teams, leaving G2 out, Rodriguez announced that he had stepped away from the position of the company��s CEO. In the video, the esports company founder claimed “full responsibility for everything that has happened over the past few days.”
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The map picks were Mirage and Vertigo, and both went into overtime. While BIG put up quite a fight on both maps during the game, G2 finished the series with a clean sweep due to the efforts of their top players, Nikola “NiKo” Kova? and Nemanja “huNter-” Kova?.

BIG started the first map, Mirage, well, but when the map started going into overtime, they could not keep up. The team ultimately caved in on themselves regardless of the attempts by Josef “faveN” Baumann to produce a different outcome. The player finished the map with a 34-19 K/D.

G2, on the other hand, had HuNter as the main star of the map and ended the map with a 19-14 win. The player finished the game with an impressive 17 deaths and 39 frags. He posted a 1.70 rating and a 41-14 K/D.

BIG put up an even tougher opposition in the next map, Vertigo, and was in the lead for the first half of the game on the CT side. The score moved to 12-4 after the team scored a win in the second pistol, but G2 soon caught up with them.

G2 secured a crucial win in the eco round, placing them back in the running and boosting the team��s confidence. The map went into overtime, and G2 ended it with a 19-17 win after bagging three rounds in a row on the T side. NiKo��s efforts on the map paid off, and overall the player contributed 36 frags and finished with a 32-28 K/D and 1.29 rating.

Due to their win against BIG, G2 is on course for a possible advancement to the ESL Pro League Season 16 playoffs set to take place in Malta. Since starting the tournament, the team has remained undefeated, with their previous match against MIBR resulting in a 2-0 win.

G2 will carry on in the competition and will take on the Outsiders, FTW, and FaZe Clan next in the coming weeks. One more win will move the team into the playoffs.

BIG, on their part, have not won a single map in the entire ESL Pro League season 16. In Group B, the team is above only FTW and will need at least two victories in order to advance to the playoffs. This could prove difficult for the team as their next match is against FaZe Clan, one of the most formidable teams worldwide.

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The news of the new G2 team captain confirms previously circulated reports after Aleksib was taken off the lineup. HooXi joined the team after leading his previous squad, Copenhagen Flames, to impressive heights.

Under him, the team reached the quarter-final stage of the PGL Antwerp Major. The Copenhagen Flames were also present in recent Stockholm Majors and, at some point, joined the best teams in the world in the top 10 world rankings.

G2��s new in-game leader is the last player from the Copenhagen Flames to get signed to a team in the offseason successfully. Sprout had taken on Rasmus ��Zyphon�� Nordfoss, Jakob ��jabbi�� Nygaard is now a part of Heroic, and Fnatic signed both Fredrik ��roeJ�� J?rgensen and Nico ��nicoodoz�� Tamjidi.

Earlier this summer, HooXi was linked with Evil Geniuses. However, the organization ended up adding K23��s Sanzhar ��neaLaN�� Iskhakov to their roster. The Danish player was previously criticized for his lack of international experience as well as some individual issues.

In the press release made by G2, the German organization revealed that the player being an experienced leader combined with his ��cool comms�� is a perfect fit for the organization.

��HooXi (who?), is an experienced IGL who has qualified for back to back Majors and is ready to help G2 win one. His cool comms and insane entry frags have us watering at the mouth as we await his G2 debut.��

When facing up against some of the top 10 opposition, the player averaged a 0.84 rating while Aleksib had a 0.93 rating. HooXi has also only been in attendance at three major tournaments, which include IEM Katowice 2022 and two PGL Majors.

The previous in-game leader of G2, Aleksib, was allowed to consider other opportunities after an unimpressive season with no trophies for the European team. After a particularly poor performance at the IEM Cologne, Aleksib announced his benching and asked interested teams to contact the team’s head.During the competition, G2 crashed out of the $1 million prize pool tournament in the early stages.

��Hey everyone, I’ve been allowed by G2 to explore my options elsewhere,�� Aleksib tweeted. ��Feel free to reach out to @G2Mayne if you have any interest. More to follow.��

The player was signed to the team in January of this year and took the place of Nemanja ��nexa�� Isakovi? to lead the team in tournaments. He had a good start with the team at the beginning of the year as the franchise finished as runners-up at the IEM Katowice held in February.

However, they were unable to build up on that. G2 proceeded to lose in the early stages of events like the PGL Antwerp Major, ESL Pro League season 15, and the most recent, the IEM Cologne.

The possibility of Aleksib being benched started circulating when the founder and CEO of G2, Carlos Rodrigues, announced the team��s intention to evaluate its CS:GO roster before the summer player break.

Hooki will be looking to start his debut strong in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups on August 20 as they go in as $1.63 favourites with the top esport betting sites against Team Liquid.

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The LoL European Championship Summer is the second split of the fourth year of European��s rebranded professional League of Legends league. The tournament features 10 teams from across the region battling for the 2022 LEC champions title.

The LEC Spring Split champions, G2 Esports commenced their Summer Split campaign on opening day against Astralis. The German-based franchise secured the win, defeating their Danish counterpart in 34 minutes.

G2 Esports, who just partook in the Mid-Season Invitational and finished in the top four position for the third time in the franchise history. They will be looking to go all the way at the LEC Summer Split. The franchise had gone on a 24-game winning streak before losing to PSG Talon on day two at MSI.

G2 Esports went into the game as favorites with a $1.20 odd of winning the fixture with the top betting sites. Top laner BrokenBlade made sure G2 secured the win with a perfect record of 6/0/4. G2 made 18 kills as opposed to Astralis 6 kills, with Targamas receiving the larger chunk of the kills.

The in-game leader also recorded the most kills alongside BrokenBlade but recorded two deaths. Jungler Jankos also held his own with a 1/1/13 record. G2 clinched the win after the team got the final three dragons of the game, but it was when Jankos secured the game-clinching Baron that really propelled them to victory.

Astralis has always been a bottom feeder in the league and the same is expected of them in the 2022 summer split. But the team has the opportunity to turn things around and secure a top four spot for a change.

In a bid to change their ill-fated reputation, Astralis had made some roster changes prior to the summer split. They had made some additions to the team’s top lane, jungle, and support positions. During the mid-season break, the franchise had signed two former LEC All-Pros, Tamas ��Vizicsacsi�� Kiss and Andrei ��Xerxe�� Dragomir.

Both players were brought in to better the team’s top lane, but after their first outing against G2, that does not seem to be the case. The duo, Vizicsacsi-Xerxe were good for a combined record of 0/9/6 in their return to the European stage.

Astralis will look to redeem themselves later today in their second outing in the LEC Summer Split. They will be taking on Team BDS in their attempt to secure their first playoff berth in the franchise history.

G2 will have the opportunity to go on a winning streak in today’s fixture against LEC Spring Split runners-up Rogue. Having finished top four in the previous summer split tournament, the coach Dylan Falco-led team will look to have a better run this year.

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The win against EG marked their 23rd consecutive win as they extended their winning streak. It also marks their fifth win over the Evil Geniuses in the Mid-Season Invitational event, having won all four games in the group stage of the tournament.

The European organization, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is yet to lose a game since March 26, the first round of the LEC Spring Playoffs. Their roster which consists of top laner – Sergen “Broken Blade” ?elik, jungler – Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski, mid laner – Rasmus “caPs” Borregaard Winther, bot laner – Victor “Flakked” Lirola Tortosa, support – Rapha?l “Targamas” Crabb�� and head analyst Rodrigo “Rodrigo” Domingues Oliveira, have been performing at the highest level.

G2 Esports started their first day at MSI 2022 on a high, cruising through their opponents despite being the underdog as designated by sportsbooks. T1, who were on a 26-game winning streak having constantly rummaged through their opponents, were shut down by G2 on Friday. They ended their hopes for a perfect season and went on to put big market team Royal Never Give Up on their backs later on that day.

On day 2, G2 Esports was faced with Evil Geniuses, who they have defeated four times already in May. Although EG started quite well and had an early momentum at the 20 minutes mark, it was G2 who later made some late picks to secure the win and extend their winning streak.

Broken Blade and caPs posted 4 kills to give their team the advantage, with a stellar stat of 4/2/10 and 4/2/9 respectively. But it was Jankos who had the most kills, as he recorded a top jungler stat of 5/2/9. Flakked registered a scoreline of 3/1/6, while support Targamus was good for 0/1/9.

After defeating Evil Geniuses, G2 will face Saigon Buffalo in a same-day fixture as day 1. Buffalo has been the better team between both teams in their head-to-head meetups. They have recorded 3 wins out of a total of 4 meetings, with G2 defeating them just once.

The Vietnamese esports organization is yet to win a game in the MSI rumble stage, as they have a 0-3 record. They will be looking to secure their first win against G2.

G2 Esports leads the standings with a sweep (3-0), while RNG places second with a 2-1 record, while T1 and PSG Talon are tied for third at 2-1 and EG fourth with a 1-2 record in the MSI second round. G2 will take on PSG Talon, and RNG on Sunday. While G2 leads the rumble stage, caPs lead the tournament with the most kills, averaging 5.75 kills per game.

To start the last day of Group A action, we have Fnatic taking on Entropiq. At the time of writing these two teams are currently sitting second and third in the group with identical records, only separated by a four round differential.

Fnatic has had one of the most interesting runs in this group. Starting off with a big loss against Ninjas in Pyjamas, then struggling but beating LookingForOrg and coming out the next day and putting away G2 in three maps. In the two wins that Fnatic have enjoyed through the first 3 games, Valentin ��poison�� Vasilev has amassed massive kill counts, 79 and 57 kills, proving why Fnatic went and got him join the team before the tournament started.

Entropiq brings solid form into this match up, with at the time of writing beating all of the teams that have crossed passed with them. Beating both LookingForOrg and Mouz 2-0, and only losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas who haven��t lost yet.

This is a big match-up that bring two solid teams and highly ranked teams in the Counter-Strike world, add in the fact that they both must win to consolidate their top 3 placing in the group. We suggest that this series should be a close on. So taking the over 2.5 maps market at $2.00 is the smart way to go.

Before the tournament, this series between G2 and Ninjas in Pyjamas would have been expected to be for top spot in Group A. However, G2 have now dropped 2 games and sit outside the top 3 at the time of writing, whereas NiP are undefeated and haven��t been troubled in most of their maps throughout the round robin.

NiP have been ultra-impressive in their first three BO3s, winning 2-0 against Fnatic and Entropiq, and losing their only map of the round robin in overtime against Mouz, where they ultimately took the series 2-1. As we referenced in our last preview of the Group A round robin, Fredrik ��REZ�� Sterner is having an MVP type of performance for NiP in the early stages of ESL Pro League. ��REZ�� is currently averaging a 1.46 rating out of 2 and owning the highest rating and highest kill to death difference of +55 at the event.

Even though G2 was one of the pre-tournament favourites, NiP has shown that they are going to be no easy beat in this series. Take the $1.90 on offer with the top Esport betting sites for the over 2.5 maps and enjoy this match-up of two CS GO heavyweights.

Finishing of the Group A action is a series between bottom placed and win-less LookingForOrg and fourth place Mouz. Mouz will need to take care of business here and do so in dominant fashion, to put the pressure on the top 3 teams and with results falling their way, potentially fall into play-offs.

Whereas for LookingForOrg will be trying to secure a win and go home with something more than just the experience they have gained from competing in ESL Pro League Season 15.

Mouz look like a different outfit in this tournament after reconnecting Aurimas ��bymas�� Pipiras with the team. He has been very consistent, being either the first or second on the scoreboard for every series Mouz have played so far. With that consistency, ��bymas�� has earned himself the average rating of 1.17 out of 2, being the fifth best so far in the tournament.

Mouz should be winning this match-up 2-0, but there isn��t a lot of value in these markets. So we suggest taking Mouz at the alternative rounds handicap of -11.5, currently sitting at $1.50 with GG Bet, is the way to go.