Thus, after several intense days of competition, the Swiss stage of the World Championship (Worlds) 2023 has concluded with 8 teams advancing to the Quarterfinals, including: T1, JD Gaming, Bilibili Gaming, Weibo Gaming, Gen.G, LNG Esports, KT Rolster, and NRG. Several teams have unfortunately left the tournament, unable to capitalize on their valuable opportunities, such as Dplus KIA and Fnatic.
However, the most surprising team to be eliminated is G2 Esports, as they were knocked out of the group stage in their final match against BLG. While BLG is a very strong opponent, being the reigning MSI 2023 runner-up, G2’s failure to avoid a difficult situation is truly blameworthy. Before facing BLG, G2 had a record of 2 wins – 1 loss. Their opponent in match 4 was just NRG – a team considered a “rookie” at Worlds. While G2 could challenge even LCK/LPL teams, no one understands why they allowed themselves to lose to NRG with a score of 0-2. Notably, NRG comes from the LCS – a region often regarded as the weakest among the Major groups.
Not only were they eliminated early, G2 also set a series of regrettable records. First, after MAD Lions, they are the second LEC team unable to win a single game against an LCS representative at Worlds 2023 this time. Notably, G2’s match against NRG was a BO3 while all 3 games of MAD against Western representatives were BO1. G2’s performance is even worse than GAM Esports at the Swiss stage. The representative from VCS won a BO3 match against Team Liquid from LCS and directly eliminated this team from Worlds 2023.
Furthermore, G2 also “helped” LEC set a disappointing record: for the first time in 9 years, LEC is completely absent from the Quarterfinals while LCS has at least one representative in this round. The last time this happened was at Worlds 2014. At that time, LCS had two representatives in the Quarterfinals (Team SoloMid and Cloud9), but both teams were defeated by the “Samsung brothers”.
It can be said that, in a way, G2 is “paying a debt” as they have continuously mocked LEC/LCS and VCS teams when these representatives were eliminated. Meanwhile, G2 holds the worst record among the highly-rated teams at this year’s Worlds.