G2 Esports eliminated Team Liquid in the first decider match of Champions Shanghai, winning 2-0 and sending Liquid out after another 1-2 group stage. The loss marked Team Liquid’s sixth straight group-stage knockout at an international event.
The series opened on Split, Liquid’s map pick, and Liquid came out sharper on attack. Kicks put down a quick 3K to shut down G2’s retake and hand Liquid a 2-0 start. G2 answered in the third round, then the teams traded the next three to reach 4-2. Liquid kept the pressure on from there, and kamo’s 5-1 FK/FD line on Raze helped build a 7-5 halftime lead.
Liquid also took the second-half pistol, with GSR adding a 3K to secure the round. G2 responded with a thrifty round sparked by BABYBAY, and that was the turning point. After that round, Liquid won only one more round for the rest of the half. A trent 1v1, valyn’s calling, and another clutch from valyn helped G2 drag Split back and steal Liquid’s map pick.
G2 recover from Liquid’s early control on Split
Split looked like a strong start for Liquid, especially after the opening attack rounds and the halftime lead. Instead, G2 kept finding answers in the midround and in clutch situations. BABYBAY’s thrifty-round heroics gave G2 breathing room, and trent was involved in the key swings that followed. Once G2 settled in, Liquid’s early structure faded and the map tilted hard in G2’s favor.
The comeback mattered because it changed the tone of the series immediately. Liquid had gone into its own map pick expecting to control the pace, but G2’s second-half defense cut off that plan. By the time Split ended, G2 had taken a 1-0 lead without needing a full shootout, and Liquid were already forced into a must-win Abyss.
That shift also fit the way the map unfolded round by round. Liquid got the start it wanted on attack, then fell apart once G2 had a chance to settle into its defensive reads. The scoreline never fully reflected how much control Liquid had early, but the last half told the real story: G2’s defense kept winning the small fights, and Liquid did not have enough answers after halftime.
Abyss starts with Liquid pressure, then G2 run away with it
Abyss followed, with G2 picking the map. Both teams fielded double-Duelist compositions, with the main differences coming from leaf’s Astra, nAts’ Cypher, jawgemo’s Neon, and GSR’s Yoru. Liquid’s Sentinel setup looked like the right choice early, since the EMEA second seed stuffed three straight attacks for a quick 3-0 lead.
G2 stopped the slide with two post-plants, one on A and one on B, then Liquid answered again. Even so, the map was starting to swing. G2 found its rhythm after that and ripped off six straight rounds. Crucial picks and clutches from trent and BABYBAY helped G2 take an 8-4 lead into the switch, leaving Liquid with a steep climb in the second half.
G2’s pistol-round win in the second half looked like it might close the book on Liquid’s run, but kamo kept the map alive with a 1v1 over valyn. Liquid followed with the next round as well, briefly halting G2’s momentum. That was the last real opening it got. In the final five rounds, BABYBAY’s Waylay entries and jawgemo’s Neon pressure overwhelmed Liquid’s setup. Even with nAts anchoring on Sentinel, Liquid could not slow the hits or the utility around them. G2 closed Abyss with relentless site pressure and eliminated Team Liquid from Champions Shanghai.
trent leads the series as G2 move on
trent was the cleanest player in the series across both maps. The Initiator main finished with a 41/26/12 KDA and a server-high 1.34 rating, and his clutches helped swing both Split and Abyss. BABYBAY also had a major hand in the win, from the thrifty round on Split to the late-round entries on Abyss that kept Liquid pinned down.
For G2, the win sends the team into the playoffs and one step closer to a trophy that has escaped it for years. BABYBAY said the group stage had been “good” and “crazy,” and explained the team’s mindset before the event: “We just need to beat TYLOO and then we feel like we can win it all.” He added that G2 felt more ready for Liquid than in the past and that the team had already fought Paper Rex hard earlier in the event.
Liquid leave Shanghai with the same problem that has followed them through recent international events. The team has now gone out in the group stage six times in a row, and this latest exit ends at 1-2 again. GSR, speaking after his international stage debut, said he was not satisfied with how he played. “Not happy. My main goal was to just find myself on the stage. I don’t think I was able to do that,” he said. “I don’t know. Something was wrong, and I wasn’t myself. I’ll try to make up for it next time.”
The other deciding group-stage matches at Champions Shanghai are still to come this weekend: Karmine Corp vs. Nongshim RedForce in Group D, LOUD vs. Global Esports in Group B, and FUT Esports vs. T1 in Group A.
Liquid really turned their own map pick into a horror movie. That Split swing after the second pistol is brutal – once G2 got one thrifty, it looked cooked.
It was more than a throw on one round. Liquid’s attack looked good early, then G2’s reads and clutches took over after the switch.
yeah fair, clutch city
one round changed everything
Was it really just that one thrifty though? Split felt like G2 kept winning the tiny fights after halftime too, not just that single round.
Six straight group-stage exits is rough. At some point you stop calling it bad luck and start calling it the pattern.
And on their own stage pick again, that hurts even more. They keep getting decent starts then the midround just disappears.
trent was the real MVP, not BABYBAY