Close but no cigar; what went wrong for EG against G2
After making the decision to promote their EG Black squad to the main lineup, not many people gave Evil Geniuses a chance coming into BLAST Fall Groups. While Timothy "autimatic" Ta has won big events including a Major title, the rest of the NA ensemble has either never played in tier one or struggled to compete during short stints at the top tournaments. Losing their first two games to Vitality and Ninjas in Pyjamas in decisive fashion, EG managed to make somewhat of a splash against G2 in their climactic game, but what exactly went wrong down the stretch?
The potential is there
Let's start with a positive. Heading on to G2's map pick of Nuke, no one gave EG a chance considering that they got blown out 16-7 on their own pick of Inferno. Despite being clearly outmatched in terms of firepower and experience, EG shocked a lot of people after managing to close out 16-13 after going up 10-5 at halftime. Managing to stave off the G2 comeback and close out, it looked promising heading into Mirage but unfortunately lightning wouldn't strike twice.
Inexperience shun through
Up 15-10, EG needed a single round to pull off the upset win and send G2 down to the Showdown, while also prolonging their own tournament life for one more series. As was mentioned previously though, one thing that this iteration massively lacks is experience and that was clear from watching the nervy Counter-Strike that they played after reaching series point. Once we made it to overtime, it was clear that there was only going to be one winner and that winner wouldn't be EG. While the team must have been crushed by the loss, getting to that point against a team like G2 has to be seen as a step in the right direction.
This NiKo guy is pretty good
Nikola "NiKo" Kovač will go down as one of the best players to ever touch CS:GO and he showed why he is considered amongst the best in this series. The Bosnian brute put up a mind-boggling 89-44 stat line with over 110 ADR for the series which. For EG, it was just pretty unfortunate that they had to run into NiKo when he was having a day like that.
