G2 enters the top four with 2-1 victory over T1

In their third rematch since the fateful Masters Bangkok finals, G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #3 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf defeated familiar opponents T1 T1 Korea Rank #2 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) DH Kang Dong-ho (강동호) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) 2-1 to send Pacific's final representatives home and enter the top four at Champions Shanghai .

G2 opened the series with a 13-11 on T1's pick of Lotus. T1 responded with a 13-10 on Abyss, but G2 executed a perfect defense on Ascent to take home the map 13-6 and the series 2-1.

Lotus was back-and-forth throughout, with neither team ever leading by more than three rounds at one time. T1 found success shutting down A Rubble, while G2 leaned heavily towards the B site, leading 7-5 at halftime after a Viper's Pit B postplant.

The score stayed close in the second half as T1 won the second pistol to instantly draw it back to 7-7. From there, jawgemo and Meteor were the individual stars of their respective teams, the Raze and Chamber each finding multiple multikills to swing rounds in their sides' favor. At 11-11, G2 eventually secured the final two rounds to take the win in regulation. jawgemo and Meteor both ended the map with 27 kills apiece.

jawgemo finds three and trent closes the 1v1 to get G2 up to nine.

Abyss was similarly close; T1 took an initial 5-2 lead on their attack after forcing G2 down to an eco twice, but G2 found their footing in retake situations to equalize 6-6. Both sides continued to trade rounds into the second half, with T1 taking the pistol and G2 responding with a Stinger force buy to make it 7-7 and then 9-9. In the end, T1 pulled away with three rounds in a row, going up 12-9 and closing it out 13-10. iZu shone on Sova with a 21/13/3 KDA.

BuZz and Meteor combine their ultimates to secure a vital 2v2.

The decider of Ascent pitted two contact-heavy double-Sentinel compositions against each other, with T1 bringing out Sage-Chamber versus G2's Vyse-Chamber. Despite the defensive nature of the map itself and both compositions, G2 managed to collect six rounds on their attack side through strong Mid pressure and crucial picks from BABYBAY 's attack Operator.

T1 had no such luck on their own attack side as G2's defense completely picked them apart; G2 won every remaining round to win Ascent 13-6. leaf topped the board in the map with 21 kills, while jawgemo led G2 over the course of the series with 58 kills and 14 first bloods.

T1 Meteor reflecting on the year as a whole: “Well, this year personally leaves a lot to be desired for me, but I think we were able to place 5th-6th place in Champions because I had really good teammates who [have] my back.”

G2 JoshRT looking ahead to the finals weekend: “I just want to frame it as like, this is unfinished business…it's just one weekend that separates us from the ultimate goal…to lift the trophy at this level. We never lifted an international trophy, but why not the big one, you know?”

With this win, G2 are the third Americas team in the top four and will take to the stage in the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai against 100 Thieves for a spot in the lower final on Friday, Oct. 16.