Stats of the Week: G2’s 1-7 loss against Rogue the organization’s second-worst performance ever

All the leagues are kicking into gear as we’re now a few weeks into the stage. Here’s a rundown of some of the standout numbers behind this week’s results.

G2’s close to a rock-bottom performance

On Monday the G2 “super-team” lost in a 1-7 result against Rogue. As well as particularly embarrassing suicide and teamkill from Jack "Doki" Robertson, the match saw three different Rogue members get more kills than G2’s three recent signings combined; 10, nine, and eight compared to the G2 players on four, two, and one.

Looking back through G2’s storied history, their lone round win in their final offensive half stopped this result from being G2’s first-ever 0-7 loss in a best-of-one game. G2 has tied this result before, however, losing to this degree against BDS three times (during Stage 1 in 2022, Stage 3 in 2021, and during the SI 2021 group stages) while Rogue previously won 7-1 in the GSA League as well. 

Looking at just the four tier-one 1-7 losses, by far the worst was Stage 3’s, as G2 netted just 10 kills across the eight rounds. Last week’s game, meanwhile, saw 20 kills from G2 while Stage 1 had 21, and SI21 had 23. Furthermore, two 2-7 losses also ended on 20 total kills -- against both NAVI and Empire in Stage 3 2021 -- albeit with a better overall result. 

By this metric of kills, this is G2’s second-worst ever performance as a team. Luckily for G2, this came during an early-season match and they still have time to figure stuff out. However, with BDS up next, they need to figure it out quickly, or we may see the first 0-7 later today.

Also notable is that even at their lowest previously, G2 never was the “worst” at anything. But right now, G2 has the lowest plant rate of any team worldwide, with just one in 12 attack rounds. G2’s dedicated planter, Kevin "Prano" Pranowitz, also has the lowest kill rate in the world with an average of 2.5 per game; four against Wolves, and one against Rogue. For comparison, the NAL’s worst kill rate comes from Adam "Drip" Kolodkin at 4.3 kills per game and eight plants.

Player of the Week: Juicy

One of the biggest "upsets" of the week saw the Knights, who had lost heavily the prior week against Elevate, smash the APAC South leaders, Wildcard, 7-2.

Not only did Juicy get nine kills to just two deaths, he did this while playing as the team's only hard-breach main on Ace, while getting four plants, and pulling off a 1v2 clutch on the final round to end the game. He excelled in almost every role to push his team back into the conversation as we near the halfway point of the league.

Elsewhere, PWNZ's Amision gets a special mention in Europe as he got the largest SiegeGG Rating of the week at 2.07 due to his 14 kills to two deaths during their 7-2 win over NAVI. This result puts PWNZ ahead of Secret in the overall 2022 standings.

In NA, meanwhile, there were a number of contenders with beastcoast's Surf coming out on top. An impressive 12 kills to six deaths, including a key 1v1 victory on round 12, ensured his team won all three points against a strengthened Parabellum roster.

If Surf had not won that round, Beastcoast would currently be in ninth place out of 10 teams. Instead, they were pushed up into fifth and, with three play days left, still have a solid shot at attending the Berlin Major.

Finally, the accolade goes to FURIA's Miracle in Brazil for a similar reason as Surf. 13 kills to five deaths (including two 1v2 clutches) allowed FURIA to beat Liquid 7-5. This is a massive blow for Liquid's Major hopes and puts FURIA up into second in the BR6 League, meaning they're very likely to attend their sixth global event in a row.

LATAM's still to play for

While w7m are almost certainly going to qualify for the Copa Elite Six next weekend, especially with a game against last placed INTZ to come on the final play day, the three other spots are wide open.

This is as the second to fourth placed teams -- Black Dragons, oNe, and FURIA -- each have 11 points. But, crucially, BD are yet to play oNe and FURIA, while oNe also are yet to play w7m. This severely limits the points they are likely to win.

Just below them, just three points separate fifth to ninth place -- FaZe, MIBR, 00 Nation, Liquid, and NiP in that order. These teams could well be in the mix given the unpredictable region. 

Once again, Liquid’s three remaining games are all against the three rosters directly ahead of them in the table, with MIBR facing the teams above and below themselves too.

This means while it is not yet mathematically the case, it is likely that if any of the top nine teams win all their remaining matches, they will still make it into the top four. All is still to play for.

Oxygen will likely unofficially qualify for SI 2023 this week

The truncated 2020 and full 2021 seasons ended with the 16th placed team by Global Points Standings sitting on 445 and 730 points, respectively. Extrapolate the 2020 figure up to three stages rather than two and that would be the equivalent of 667 points.

Oxygen Esports have already earned 455 SI Points from their Stage 1 results and this week will very likely qualify for the Berlin Major. A last place exit in Berlin would net OxG 275 more points, putting their total to 730.

This is well above the 2020 season figure and tied with 16th place from 2021 despite last year seeing a number of surprise clutch results from the likes of Rogue and DWG in Sweden, which rose the lower bound.

This means it is likely that OxG could not win a single game from Wednesday this week onwards throughout the rest of 2022 and still qualify for SI 2023. However, this will not be mathematically confirmed until at least the end of the Berlin Major.

Liquid, Astralis, and DarkZero are all in the same position as OxG, as they earned the same or more SI Points during Stage 1, but OxG is having a much better Stage 2 performance than all three other teams.