G2 in for a donking? - Spirit vs G2 Preview

Can anyone stop Team Spirit?

G2 have done very well to get to playoffs, but one has to feel their run might just stop here. donk is in Major-winning form and Spirit look unstoppable.

donk - otherwise known as ‘top right donk,’ here at rdy for his propensity to be found at, you guessed it, the top right of every graph we make - has been ridiculous by every metric. Kills, ADR, KPR, Duel Swing. Round Swing. Rating… pick a stat and it’s mindblowing.

There’s been a lot of talk around the form of tN1R and how hally vs Sotf1k impacts him, and we’re sure they’re interesting discussions, it’s just that none of it has mattered when donk plays like this.

G2 are much more egalitarian with their fragging, and are genuinely a joy to watch at times. They have talent from positions 1-5 and are one of the few teams where the suggestion that ‘anyone on this team can carry a game’ is more than just cope.

In that way, these two teams are two differing ideas of how to play the game. One team powered by a supernova, the other by the power of friendship.

How did we get here?

Spirit are 10-2 in maps at the Major so far. They dropped ten rounds in the whole of Stage 2, which is insane. Of the ten maps they’ve won, in only two have the opposition hit double figures.

There has been no debate that they’ve been the best team here so far.

G2 have, comparatively, had to fight tooth and nail. They snuck through beating NAVI in a close 2-1 - a great result for them - traded 1-2s with FUT over the two stages, lost to Falcons, lost to Aurora but beat Legacy… a mixed bag of results, but that win over NAVI in a 2-2 game makes it all worth it.

Spirit in focus.

Top right donk.

He is, in our model and our eyes, the best player in the world. He wins so many gunfights it looks like he’s playing COD Zombies sometimes. He has massive impact and wins every fair fight he’s in and a big chunk of the unfair ones as well.

sh1ro is a very good player, reliably wins his duels but not always able to get in the game. tN1R is up and down, and quite frankly misused quite a lot (he’s classed as a support in our model and given next to no resources), which supports the Sotf1k side of the coaching debate.

Those are talking points that would matter on a team where the star rifler isn’t on over 200% duel swing for the whole season, and over 60% round swing. He’s on over 100% round swing from Stage 3. The guy is mindblowing.

Spirit have an underwhelming rifle core behind donk - neither zont1x nor tN1R truly feel like second stars most of the time - a quality AWPer who can be a bit passive, a style of play that can be a bit simple and an inexperienced IGL. None of these are massive problems, but would add up if they weren’t arguably the best team in the world on current form purely due to donk.

Yes, we’re really hammering home this point. That’s because it’s actually just true.

G2 in focus

While donk is the S+ tier star player, HeavyGod is kinda the same thing for support/hard support players.

G2 are not as reliant on HeavyGod because relying in a hard anchor, supportive player would be insane. And yet, he does sort of carry them from there.

A top tier team’s best player playing roles like this is pretty much unheard of. The guy is absolutely incredible at the jobs nobody else wants to do. He’s like Mr Muscle, or Claude Makelele, or Scottie Pippen. You get the idea.

That’s not to say the rest of them are not up to scratch. There’s no player whom our model rates below average, with MATYS, huNter- and SunPayus all being liked by it. huNter- is a weird case where he gets some nicer roles than most IGLs do, but he does do some work with it. MATYS can blow hot and cold, but is an excellent big site anchor. SunPayus isn’t the most well-rounded, but as a pure AWPer, espcially defensively, he is superb and probably underrated nowadays.

That leaves NertZ, who we like more than the model generally, but hasn’t fully slotted in to this team yet. He’s been pretty terrible in Cologne so far, but we’re not super worried just yet outside of the fact that it might be a problem against Spirit.

What it does mean though, is that despite all of the players performing well, the order is reversed. You’d want your star player to be elite and your supports to be lower down, really. G2’s best player has the worst roles, and the player performing worst in his roles is the star. It’s confusing.

G2 are confusing. But they are quite good. The depth of their line-up means that they always have the tools in any situation to make something happen; but their lack of a true X factor superstar does hamper them slightly against elite opposition.

Expectations

As with any Spirit game, if G2 can stop donk, they’ll probably win. They have better support players and more depth throughout the team, so in a war of attrition can in theory get it done.

They likely won’t though, because ‘if you can stop donk’ is like ‘if Dogecoin did go to $1 per coin…’. It just doesn’t work like that. You can’t stop donk, only delay him. He will have his say.

G2 have generally been dominant against weaker opposition but fall short against top teams, and we don’t expect that trend to stop. They don’t have the muscle and firepower to consistently go toe-to-toe with a Vitality or, indeed, Spirit.

donk is in peak condition, and we wouldn’t back anyone against him right now. It’s nothing personal, G2, he’s just the best player in the world.