ESL One New York 2019 Semifinals Recap: Evil Geniuses vs. G2 Esports

The first Semifinals match of ESL One New York 2019 featured a tense, back-and-forth match between Team Liquid and Astralis. The second Semifinals match, which featured Evil Geniuses and G2 Esports, was nothing like that. 

▲ Image Source: ESL

 


Evil Geniuses entered the tournament mere hours after acquiring the NRG Esports CS:GO roster, and received an immediate return of investment in the form of 2-0 victories against FaZe Clan and Astralis, and a subsequent Semifinals qualification as the 1st seed from Group B. 


G2 Esports parted ways with Richard "shox" Papillon at the onset of ESL One NY 2019, and had arguably the hardest road to the playoffs, coming back against ENCE twice for the 2-0 before losing to Team Liquid 2-1 after a tense OT win.

G2 then rematched ENCE for the final Semifinals spot, and won in a dramatic 2-1 series that featured another OT win for the French side. 

 

 


Evil Geniuses got off to a hot start on Dust2, winning the first six rounds before G2 Esports finally managed to get on the board. EG continued to push its lead against G2, leading 10-2 towards the end of the half before dropping the last three rounds. Whatever G2 had figured out at the end of the first half kept on working at the start of the second half, and EG's lead was narrowed 10-8.  

Evil Geniuses had yet to drop a map at ESL One NY, and kicked it into high gear. G2 suddenly looked overmatched against the former NRG Esports roster, and would be unable to take even a single additional round on Dust2 as EG cruised to  map 1 victory. The streaky back-and-forth nature of the Dust2 bout was highlighted by an incredible performance by Evil Geniuses' Cvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov, who was instrumental in his team's win over G2 Esports.

 


The series moved to Nuke for map 2, and once again, Evil Geniuses took a substantial lead early on, winning five quick rounds before G2 managed to slow the pace to methodically win the sixth.  EG remained in control as the game progressed, with Tarik "tarik" Celik putting on a show for his home crowd at Barclays Center. G2 did its best to hold on, narrowing the lead to 11-7 at a point in the second half, but Evil Geniuses put a stop to things there and triumphed on Nuke 16-7.

 



Evil Geniuses' 2-0 impressive win over a resurgent Astralis places the team in the Grand Finals against Astralis, which will take place at Barclays Center tomorrow. The pre-game show for the Grand Finals is set to start at 12:55pm local time, and at 1:30, Astralis and EG will face off in the only best-of-5 series of the tournament to crown the ESL One New York 2019 champion. 

 

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