For an organization of G2’s stature, they have not driven the news cycle lately. The one headline that they recently shared was with Team Liquid in a player swap, bringing in NertZ and swapping out malbsMd. This move happened over a month ago now, on March 12th 2026, but there still hasn’t been much punditry nor analysis surrounding this team.
The reason for this is simple. Despite the fact that this team has played 4 LAN events, 3 of them were in the doldrums of the local LAN circuits which are now a feature of the VRS race. The highest peak viewership for each of G2’s matches in BCGame Masters Chamipionship, Roman Imperium Cup VII, and Stake Ranked Episode 1 were respectively and roughly 42000, 29000, and 40000 concurrent viewers. IEM Rio on the other hand, had an average viewership of 10x what the peak viewership of any of these matches were.
Unfortunately, G2 couldn’t play with their in-game leader, huNter for IEM Rio so their biggest event with the NertZ-led lineup was missing the piece that is arguably the most important to defining them.
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Regardless, I’ve dove into the nitty gritty and watched back several of G2’s matches to give the lowdown of what’s working, who’s working, what isn’t, and who isn’t.
First things first, how have the positions changed?
Sunpayus – Still remains the AWPer.
HeavyGod – Still anchors some of the toughest spots in the game: Ancient B, Anubis A, Dust2 B, Inferno A, Mirage A, Overpass B (monster). His only change of these is to Mirage A when he was Mirage B before.
MATYS – He’s moved from more rotator spots to a couple more anchor positions:
- Matys has kept: Ancient Cave, Anubis B anchor, Inferno B Anchor, Overpass B (short),
- Matys has moved from: Dust2 Mid to Long A, Mirage B Short to B Anchor
huNter – Still primarily a rotator with only one position swap:
- huNter has kept: Ancient A, Anubis CT mid, Dust2 A rotator, Inferno A rotator, Overpass rotator
- huNter has moved from: Mirage Connector to Mirage Short B
NertZ has taken over what are primarily the best and most action-packed CT spots on every single map in G2’s pool: Ancient Mid, Anubis Ebox, Dust2 B rotator, Inferno Banana, Mirage Connector, and Overpass A rifle.
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In G2’s events with their starting 5, they took a couple tournaments before they found comfort. In their opening bout at BCGame Masters, they won their opening match vs aimclub, a Romanian team outside of the top #150 teams on HLTV, but were met with defeat against a SINNERS team who qualified for the IEM Cologne Major.
In the match versus SINNERS, one of my main takeaways was the frequency with which G2 would lose opening picks against weaker buys. Using Skybox EDGE, I looked at G2’s opening kill stats versus ecos ($3300 average equipment or lower) while G2 had a full buy for themselves and it was shockingly bad in the 3 smaller LANs. They only have a 1.33 Kill-Death Ratio on openers when playing against Ecos. This is abysmal by professional standards. Navi for example has a 2.20 Kill-Death Ratio vs Ecos in the last 2 months. Vitality has a 2.70 Kill-Death Ratio vs Ecos. Even Astralis, who should be of a similar level has a 2.50 Kill-Death Ratio vs Ecos. The odd part is that there is no single worst offender. Both NertZ and huNter have terrible opener stats vs Ecos (1.17 and 1.18 OpKD respectfully), but no one else is above a 1.67.
Let me just say this plainly, G2 need an eco-farmer to step up to the plate. Securing the easy rounds shouldn’t be a tier 1 team’s biggest problem, but it bit them on Overpass vs SINNERS where they lost so many guns on anti-ecos that even with a 4-1 start, they fell apart as SINNERS broke their economy due to all of the inflicted damage from previous ecos.
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On the positives, there are more than a handful of examples of CT side rounds where rotations are exactly where they should be due to prodding just for the right amount of information. As you’d expect of a team with veterans and youngsters, utility is then well placed to set up players who find the multifrags that are asked of them. This team has good Counter-Strike instincts.
Stylistically on T-side, this team generally has two different gears: A set piece execute or a default into a simple finisher. G2’s T-sides do not look as layered as you would hope for a core that’s now been under huNter’s leadership for 10 months. Even when getting an opening pick, G2 does not tend to exert multiple points of pressure and lay down a chokehold over the map. In an attempt to make sure nothing goes wrong from a point of power, they’ll quickly convert into the finisher of the round relinquishing whatever map control was gained. This came up in their loss to BetBoom at the Roman Imperium Cup VII in a pivotal gun round on Mirage. Even down the stretch, they find a 5v3 advantage which they squander by grouping up with their man advantage and doing a full B halls pop in which zorte finds a multikill hold with his AWP.
G2 need to entrust individuals to secure space then press forward for finishers on their own. huNter does not seem to believe in anyone lingering as a solo lurker to be that extra attacker from a secondary or tertiary angle. Until they begin to get trickier with their attacks, they’ll be easy to read.
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When looking at individuals, the rifle trio of G2 is strong enough to contend with teams in the 5-10 range and G2 should be looking to secure their position in that sort of space. With FUT and Astralis finding footing in the Top 6 VRS teams, there’s little reason to believe G2 shouldn’t also have a chance. If someone said to pick between NertZ, HeavyGod, and MATYS or jabbi, Staehr, and ryu, I’d call that a coinflip, between the two cores in terms of raw ability.
But if you were looking for one reason to not believe, it would unfortunately take shape in Sunpayus. Sunpayus’ T-sides are just downright bad for the year. The only AWPs with worse Ratings in the Top 20 of 2026 are: Maka (an IGL), torzsi (career worst year for him), broky (don’t even get me started), s1zzi (first 2 months in Tier 1), and yxngstxr (a stand-in). His AK-47 stats per Skybox EDGE are poor. EDGE doesn’t calculate Rating 3.0, but their Economy Rating indicates how much economic damage you deal in regards to your weapon used. His AK-47 produces 68 ADR, and is at an 0.81 Economy Rating. Via Skybox EDGE’s metric, it’s geniunely a waste of money to put an AK in the hands of Sunpayus. Over 17 rounds with the Tec-9, he’s had 8 higher ADR than his AK has contributed. This guy needs to learn to rifle to be a real contributor.
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In summary, G2 have a great backbone of T-side philosophy: default with world class players and go for quick conversions upon finding wins after coinflip opening kills. However, they need to add a bit more depth to their calling style on T-side, drawing the rounds out and letting individuals have more autonomy to close rounds out with finesse. On the side of players across the team, I have no strong complaints with any riflers except when Sunpayus himself wields them. If he can bring back some of his rifling form which he held on ENCE, you could see this team punch up. I believe BLAST Rivals or PGL Astana will lead to breakthroughs where the team can finally see a S-Tier playoff berth off the back of a couple upsets to restore some glory to the G2 name. But this can only be achieved if they clean up some of those anti-ecos.
