This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
With this being a professional Counter-Strike tournament, there were bound to be some upsets and surprising results. Northern Arena Montreal was no exception as OpTic Gaming found itself at the center of attention thanks to their upset win over G2 Esports.
The semifinals started off with the showdown between Team EnVyUs and G2 Esports. The teams entered the fateful match on different sides of the spectrum, as EnVyUs bulldozed their way through the weekend while G2 struggled to just make the playoffs. With how the teams have been playing of late, it almost seemed like a foregone conclusion that EnVyUs would continue its strong run in the tournament and clean things up with a series win.
That couldn't have been further from the truth. EnVyUs stumbled in the beginning match, finishing the first half on Overpass down 11-4. They would completely flip the script in the second half, however, as EnVyUs was able to conjure together a 11-4 half of their own to force overtime. However one overtime wasn't enough as both teams battled into a second overtime, with G2 eventually prevailing 22-18. That first game seemed to reinvigorate G2 as they would go on to win Game 2 rather handily, knocking out Team EnVyUs in the process.
The second semifinal would be much closer, as Heroic looked to continue its strong run through the tournament against OpTic Gaming. The series was pretty close during Game 1 on Cache, with OpTic holding a narrow 8-7 lead over Heroic at the half. OpTic would then take over in the second half, earning a 16-10 win behind a strong performance from Òscar "mixwell" Cañellas, who posted a 111.0 ADR. Game 2 followed an almost identical line of play, this time with Heroic taking an 8-7 halftime lead before finishing up the map 16-8. OpTic didn't leave much up to chance in Game 3 on Cobblestone. Tarik "tarik" Celik went off with a stellar 25/8 KD to go along with a 116.6 ADR. With the win, OpTic earned their way to a grand finals match against G2.
Considering how both of these teams have played of late, this was a somewhat surprising grand final matchup. It wasn't as surprising as the final result, though. G2 got off to great start on Cobblestone, earning a 12-3 lead at the half, but then the wheels completely fell off the hype train. From the second half of Game 1 on, G2 was outscored 43-19 in the subsequent rounds. OpTic, to the surprise of many, managed to rise to a level of play that we haven't really seen from them at this level.
Even though G2 won the first game, they still managed to lose 11 rounds in the second half, turning what appeared to be a laugher into a tightly contested 16-14 Game 1 win. Game 2 on Dust 2 was almost as close, but this time OpTic came out on top with a 16-12 win. By this point, G2 seemed to lose a bit of their focus, as the team completely crumbled in the second half. Despite finding themselves down just 9-6 at halftime, they couldn't muster a single round win the second half, as OpTic was able to score seven straight wins en route to a 16-7 series clinching victory. mixwell once again came up big in the tournament, posting a 71/47 KD and 86.8 ADR across all three games of the series.
With the win, OpTic has allowed North America to further tighten its ever strengthening grip on the competitive Counter-Strike scene. For the longest time, many have looked down on teams from North America and instead focused on the teams in Europe. Now that both Cloud9 and OpTic have shown that they can hang with the big boys, it might be time for that narrative to shift.
