The G2 Esports Story: The Best in the West

G2 Esports is considered to be the best team that the west has ever produced. With a pure European lineup, this team is the pride of the entire LEC. As the west’s strongest representative at Worlds for two years in a row, the G2 Esports story continues to draw attention in the international community. Today, everybody knows the name G2 Esports. But how did this team start from being the second-best team in Europe to the greatest organization to have ever graced the western esports hemisphere?

Perkz being featured on the big screen G2 Esports story
The Story of the West’s Best team

El Clásico: xPeke vs Ocelote Rivalry

To know the origins of how the G2 Esports story came to be, we need to dive into the core of its origin – El Clásico. During the early days of the League of Legends esports scene, one pair of mid laners would often find themselves pitted against each other in European tournaments. SK Gaming’s Carlos “ocelote” Rodriguez Santiago and Fnatic’s Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño Martínez would often clash in tournaments being dubbed El Clásico by the fans because of their Spanish origins.

xPeke and ocelote being interviewed after SK's loss
The original rivals in Europe

The rivalry wasn’t really filled with too much drama, the most memorable moment came with xPeke’s game-winning backdoor against ocelote. Eventually, the two “rivals” would retire from the professional League of Legends scene, with ocelote dreaming of building his own team instead of playing in one. Thus, the team Gamers2 was born and began the very core of the G2 Esports story. Of course, xPeke started his own team in Origen but their existence is not relevant moving forward.

The Days of Gamers2

Gamers2 was ocelote’s dream starting to be realized. In 2014, he launched the team and recruited some of the best players in the league to compete with him on his team. They competed in multiple EU promotional series with the hopes of becoming a recognized team that competes in the EU LCS. Ocelote would eventually find a worthy replacement for him in the mid lane sometime in 2015 – a rookie named Perkz. Ocelote finally retired from the pro-scene and became a full-time coach and owner of Gamers2.

The Gamers2 Official Roster
Where the G2 Esports story begins

Perkz became an integral part of Gamers2, becoming their star player for the years to come. In 2015, Gamers2 competed in the Expansion series of the EU LCS where they lost against n!facultry in the 3rd round. They were unable to qualify for the Spring and Summer Promotionals in 2015 but as 2016 came, they were able to defeat SK Gaming to secure their spot in the EU LCS 2016 season as an upcoming rookie team to watch.

The G2 Esports Story – Not so Humble Beginnings

At some point before they entered the EU LCS in 2016, they decided to rebrand to G2 Esports instead of Gamers2. During the EU LCS 2016 Spring Season, you’d expect a rookie team to start establishing themselves first and get a feel of the competition. However, G2 Esports absolutely steamrolled the competition and came out first in the Spring and Summer Regular Seasons as well as winning the entire tournament by dumsptering every team in the playoffs.

During the debut year of G2 Esports, they qualified for the World Championships where they would be grouped with favorites ROX Tigers, a wildcard region in Albus Nox, and NA’s 3rd seed, Cloud9. Unfortunately, G2 Esports got destroyed by every other team and only won a single game against Albus Nox ending their Group Stage run 1-5. G2 Esports would watch H2k Gaming until the semifinals where they lost to Samsung Galaxy.

The Legendary Bot Lane Duo

Going back to 2015, the G2 Esports story only became what it was today because of the addition of two players who was considered as the strongest bot lane duo in the west. Mithy and Zven originally played with Origen, but after losing to G2 Esports in the Spring Season, decided to move here to further their career. Upon joining the team, the two managed to bring a strong bot side that allowed Perkz to focus more on his lane.

The Legendary Botlane Duo of G2: Zven and Mithy
The legendary botlane!

2017: Continued Dominance

The controversial G2 Esports story would persevere through 2017, with the organization keeping their 2016 Summer Starting Roster and continue to dominate the competition. The struggling Fnatic was starting to regain composure once again in the tournament and proved to be their biggest competitor in the season. Needless to say, G2 Esports was simply too strong for the any other EU team so they ended up winning the Spring Season.

G2 Esports official roster in 2017
The rise of G2 Esports

The summer season wasn’t as forgiving to G2 Esports as FNC started showing that they were a dominant team. At the end of the Regular Summer Season, FNC ended with a record of 11-2 but as playoffs came. However, as playoffs came, FNC was easily beaten by Misfits Gaming and G2 Esports were able to win the playoffs once again. The organization would make it to the world stage for the second year in a row where they would fail to make it out of the Group Stage yet again.

The Exodus of Zven and Mithy

After their loss in the Group Stage once again, Zven and Mithy departed from G2 Esports and continued their story with Team SoloMid. This left a huge void in the organization and left G2 Esports without their strong bot lane. Perkz remained loyal to the organization but his G2 Esports story would not be the same without having the dominant laners they had before. He remained the star mid lane of Europe but had struggles in 2018.

Hardships in 2018

The 2018 Season sparked hardships for the crippled G2 Esports roster. Without their star bot lane duo, everybody assumed that the G2 Esports story was essentially over. However, G2 Esports would persevere and make do with their new bottom lane duo. Because of the dreaded Marksman Patch, their new ADC – Hjarnan was able to adapt well into the meta and play his signature pick, Heimerdinger, into the tournament.

G2 Esports managed to secure 2nd seed in the Spring Regular Season but finally lost in the Finals against the very dominant Fnatic. In the Summer Season, they faltered even more and only placed 5th in the regular season and lost in the quarterfinals of the playoffs 0-3. Luckily for them, they had enough Championship Points to qualify them in the Regional Gauntlet where they eventually qualified for Worlds for the third year in a row.

G2 Esports official roster in 2018
G2’s 2018 Roster

G2 Esports, seemingly looking a bit weaker than they did than the years before were not expected to even get out of the Play-In stage. As the Worlds 2018 Play-Ins came to a close, G2 were able to narrowly get out of their Play-In groups after a tie-breaker and eventually won against Latin America to make it into the group stage. It was impressive seeing as how all the major regions were expected to get out of the group stage any because of the disparity in region competition.

G2 Esports was placed in an okay group, facing both the VCS and LMS. LCK was the real challenge in the group but as expected, they couldn’t win against them. G2 once again got out of groups after a tie-breaker with Flash Wolves but as the knockout matchups were announced, fans were distraught. G2 Esports were matched against the tournament favorites – Royal Never Give Up. RNG and Uzi won every single tournament during that year, and fans were quick to throw G2 under the bus.

The G2 Esports Miracle in Worlds 2018

Royal Never Give Up had won every single tournament they attended in 2018. Uzi was dubbed the best AD Carry of all-time, especially in 2018. With the team having a relatively weak bot-side, it seemed like the G2 Esports story was over once again. G2 Esports faced RNG and during the first game, and sure enough, they were absolutely demolished. However, G2 learned from that game and knew of the shortcomings that they had and the weaknesses of G2. They refused to play in the tempo that RNG would set for them so they began dictating the future games.

Game 2 came and they applied this strategy, becoming more fearless in the draft picks to ensure that every single one of them had the potential to carry – this became the basis for future LEC games as well. They surprised RNG with the playstyle they showed and managed to sneak a win. The series was tight ending up 2-1 in favor of RNG. However, during the last 2 games, G2 esports became even more aggressive that they managed to win in a dominating fashion, ending the journey of the tournament favorites.

RNG vs G2 Game 5 Highlights Worlds 2018 Playoffs Royal Never Give Up vs G2 Esports by Onivia

G2 Esports proceeded to the semi-finals where they would face eventual champions Invictus Gaming. Their journey ended here since iG had the same recklessly aggressive playstyle that they had, except they didn’t have a weak botlane to drag them down. Fnatic would face iG in the Finals where they too would lose against them. 2018 became the year that G2 Esports would bring hope to the European fans and revolutionize the style of the region to help them become the strong region that they are today.

The G2 Esports Revolution

Before 2019, the League of Legends scene in Europe was filled with Korean imports because organizations believed that they believed Korea produced the best players in the world. In 2019, everything changed and the number of Korean players in LEC orgs suddenly went down. G2 Esports in particular got their hands Europe’s new star – Caps. But there was a problem with this move; G2 Esports now have 2 superstar mid laners. In a deeply surprising move, Perkz stepped down from the mid lane to be G2’s bot laner.

G2 Esports now have a full European roster, no imports but full of talent. Not surprisingly, G2 Esports performed excellently throughout the entire season and steam-rolled the Spring Split to and qualified for the Mid-Season Invitationals. Not surprisingly, with all of Europe’s superstars in one team they managed to qualify for the MSI Top 4 where they faced against the Korean Superteam in SKT.

G2 Esports in MSI 2019

SK Telecom T1, the 3-time world champions managed to put all the players who were top 3 in their respective roles in a single team. G2 was completely unfazed about this fact and managed to take SKT to a game 5 where they eventually managed to take them down. In a moment of joy, the entirety of Europe knew that their time had come. Team Liquid also managed to proceed to the finals but SKT was already their final challenge. G2 easily swept North America even finishing the game under 20 minutes in one game. G2 were the 2019 MSI Champions.

G2 Esports wins MSI 2019 and becomes Europe's hope
Victory for G2, Victory for Europe

G2 Esports at Worlds 2020

The G2 Esports story continued to dominate both Europe and the world. Summer was a breeze for the MSI champions and they went on again to compete on the world stage. For the first time in history, an Asian team wasn’t the favorites to win the World Finals. For the first time in history, Europe starting telling the world with full-confidence and zero-memes that Europe is going to win worlds. For the first time in history, everyone believed them.

The competition was tight at Worlds 2020, every team felt like the gap between them was extremely close. G2 managed to get an easy group so they got out of the Group Stage easily. They managed to defeat the two Korean superteams in the knockout stage and went on to play on the finals. Unfortunately, FunPlus Phoenix made quick work of G2 Esports and made them look like an inferior version of their team.

The G2 Esports Story Moving Forward

G2 Esports may have lost Worlds 2019, but thanks to their efforts, the LEC is officially recognized as the 2nd Strongest Region in the World. All of their players have signed a contract that extends their time within the organization until 2022. Whether G2 Esports will win Worlds during this time, nobody knows. All we know right now is that this team definitely has the heart of a champion and are built to never give up.

How many trophies has G2 Esports won?

G2 Esports have won 8 championship titles in the LEC and 1 Mid-Season Invitational’s Trophy. They are currently the most decorated team in Europe.

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