This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
After two days of competition, the playoff teams for Northern Arena Montreal are set. While there were some pretty closely contested games, things largely went according to plan with no major upsets to speak of.
The day started out with a battle between Heroic and G2 Esports in the winner's match of Group A. After G2 took down compLexity the day before, many thought this would finally be the time G2 would replicate its success from the summer, and begin winning consistently again. That was not the case unfortunately. While G2 ended up making somewhat of a game out of it, they still ended up falling to Heroic 16-14, landing in the loser's final which took place later that day. Heroic, on the other hand, moved straight to the semifinals to take on the winner of the loser's finals for Group A.
Team EnVyUs was the next team to earn a spot in the semifinals, continuing their easy run through the tournament thus far. EnVyUs got out to a fast start and went into the half up 12-3 before wrapping things up, finishing with a 16-8 win over OpTic Gaming. Nathan "NBK" Schmitt continued his strong tournament run with another dominating performance, this time going 28/13 with a 116.5 ADR.
The first loser's final between G2 and Team Liquid in Group A was by far the closest of the two series. G2 started off with a 1-0 lead in the series after winning the first match on Train, 16-13. Team Liquid was not content to let G2 have it easy, though, as evidenced by the 16-11 win in Game 2 on Cache. This set up a decisive Game 3 to see which team would be sent packing and which team would live to fight another day. G2 made sure there was no doubt who would be walking away on top however. Both Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro and Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux put up strong performances, posting matching 20/10 KDs and 1.53 HLTV ratings during the lopsided, 16-5 win on Nuke. With the win, G2 advanced to the semifinals where it would take on Team EnVyUs in an EU showdown.
In the final series of the group stages, OpTic Gaming took control of the series from the start, jumping out to a 12-3 halftime lead against NRG eSports. Despite a bit of a push by the opposition, OpTic was still able to clean up the game rather quickly winning on Dust 2, 16-9. The second game on Cobblestone was even more one-sided. NRG were able to win a few more rounds before halftime compared to their first match, but they still trailed OpTic 10-5 at break. Mercilessly, OpTic quickly finished things off from there, rattling off six straight round wins to take the map and the series. OpTic now moves on to face Heroic in the semifinals on Saturday.
Only two best-of-three series stand between one of these four teams and the $50,000 prize. Will G2 finally get back on track and take down one of the EU juggernauts in EnVyUs? Will Heroic continue its somewhat surprising tear through the tournament? We'll find out tomorrow when the action kicks off at 12:00 PM EST with G2 and EnVyUs.
