G2 Esports started with the success of IEM Katowice 2024, where they defended the title won last year, by defeating Heroic 2-1 after a lot of struggle.
Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov had one of the best matches of his career and thanks to his individual play G2 managed to avoid defeat at the start of the tournament.
With 90 frags across three maps and 110.3 damage per round with a 1.74 rating, m0NESY had 39 more frags than Nikola "NiKo" Kovač who was second on Team G2.
The match opened on the Overpass map, which G2 continues to play well below the average needed to win against the best teams in the world, but m0NESY did what was necessary with 39 frags to give G2 a 16-13 lead after overtime.
Heroic responded on Anubis where they cruised to a 16-13 overtime triumph, with Guy "NertZ" Iluz playing a key role with a beautiful three frags at a key moment at the end of the map.
Fortunately for G2, m0NESY continued his great play on Nuke, where we saw the score tied at halftime, but in the second half of the game, G2 completely dominated the CT side with great defense and took all seven rounds for a convincing 13-6.
In the next round, G2 will play against the better team from the match ENCE - Vitality.
In the remaining matches that have been played so far, FaZe Clan was convincing with 2-0 against Rebels Gaming, while Eternal Fire beat Team Falcons with an identical score.
