G2 CS:GO after their win against Flash Gaming. Credit: G2 Esports Twitter (@G2Esports)

The first Counter Strike: Global Offensive major of 2018 is officially underway.

This time, things are going to be ran a little different. The top eight teams of the PGL Krakow are automatically in and are considered the “Legends”. The rest of the teams had to qualify for the challenger stage for their shot at competing against the Legends for the title.

On Friday, we saw the first round of games from the challengers. One of those teams being G2, who have had all eyes on them since forming back in 2017.

The Frenchman who have been dubbed as a “superteam” to many, faced off against Flash Gaming. Flash is a team that was unknown to many before this tournament which resulted in many analysts and fans to think G2 should pick up this win pretty easily.

Well, that was not the case at all. The map was inferno, G2 started off on the CT side, and Flash came to play.

Flash was able to win five straight rounds before G2 could even get on the board. Not taking anything away from them for their great start, but this could have been easily avoided by G2.

Let’s use those first five rounds as our starting point here. Here is how G2 went about their setups. Send NBK to B, send 3 to A (one watching over mid), and then have apeX playing arch to easily rotate to B if needed.

Not a bad setup on paper, but that is asking a lot out of NBK. Not saying that he is a bad player, but it is a lot to ask for anyone to hold an entire site by themselves.

Flash picked up on what G2 wanted to do, and they were able to abuse it time and time again.

Flash exploded onto the site in the first pistol round and even though NBK picked up a kill, the push was still too much for him to handle. As a result, Flash got control of the site and was able to set up a great post plant situation.

From there, they switched up the way they approached the site, but their idea was always still there. And that was to attack NBK and take B almost every single round.

How did they do it? Simple, send a few players to A as a fake, keep a few players in banana, and then wait on some information that G2 has rotated fully. Once that happened, explode onto the site yet again and play post plant.

B is always a site that causes trouble for CT’s who need to retake. Mostly because there are so many places to hide and if the T’s have utility then they can lock it down no problem.

Historically speaking, G2 has always struggled on CT inferno. So it seems like Flash did their homework and knew exactly how they wanted to play it.

They were able to win the first half 9–6 and had G2 with their backs against the walls. But, T side proved to be a different story for them.

After losing the second pistol, G2 went with an interesting buy during round 18. They elected to go with five galils with armor and a few nades.

After taking that round, they would never look back as they would go on to win 10 straight rounds and take the map. They were able to efficiently trade on sites, Bodyy was doing a great job lurking, and everyone seemed to be more comfortable all around.

This could have been absolutely terrible for G2. Going into the second day of challenger matches with a loss to a team that you should have dominated can take a toll on your confidence.

They were able to win, but it was ugly and it can be used as a learning experience. G2 is facing off against Misfits in their next match who is coming off a dominant win against Flipsid3.

Tune in at twitch.tv/eleaguetv to watch all of the matches.