Official: G2 sign malbsMd

Following reports of G2 pursuing M80's Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa, the two parties have come to an agreement for the Guatemalan star to join the European superteam. malbsMd joins G2 in the place of Nemanja "nexa" Isaković, who was benched earlier this month following poor performances during the first half of the year.

This move marks G2's first full-time foray into the North American Counter-Strike sphere, leaning toward European players since entering the title in 2015. malbsMd joins the core of four players who won IEM Katowice 2023 and IEM Cologne 2023 along with BLAST World Finals 2022 and most recently, IEM Dallas 2024. Despite the shock victory at IEM Dallas, the team had been in poorer form since the start of the year, with nexa often being a point of contention.

malbsMd leaves M80 as their highest rated player with a 1.25 rating since joining the team. He was by far the team's best player at ESL Pro League Season 19, the same tournament where M80 took G2 the distance in two nail-biting best-of-threes. Since the start of the year, malbs holds a 1.23 rating on LAN along with a 1.46 impact rating and 88 ADR.

As a space-taker on T-side and a rotator on CT-side, it remains to be seen how malbsMd will fit into the G2's constellation considering nexa took much different responsibilities on the team. Either some shuffling of the pieces will be taken to give malbs his preferred spots, or he will be relegated to the same anchor roles nexa inhabited.

With this move, G2 are:

• Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač

• Nikola "NiKo" Kovač

• Ilya "m0nesy" Osipov

• Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen

• Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa

• Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas (Coach)

• Nemanja "nexa" Isaković (Inactive)