CaPs Says He Respects EG’s Trash Talk After G2 Esports Thrashes the NA Side

The match between G2 Esports (G2) from Europe and North America’s (NA) Evil Geniuses (EG) was dubbed the featured matchup of Day 1 of the MSI 2022 Group Stage. Notably, both these teams had a spectacular lower bracket run in their respective leagues and managed to win the Spring Split. G2 Esports walked into this game after defeating ORDER in a quick 27-minute game. Going into this match, all eyes were on the mid lane with Rasmus "caPs" Borregaard Winther and Joseph Joon "jojopyun" Pyun challenging each other.

Right from the get-go, this match turned into an exciting affair with both teams locking in some interesting champions. Evil Geniuses locked in Ryze, Samira, Nautilus, Aatrox, and Karthus. On the opposite side of the map, G2 Esports chose to play Pyke, Graves, Zeri, Anivia, and Nasus. At the conclusion of the drafting phase, the general consensus was that G2’s draft clearly outshone Evil Geniuses’ picks.

Capitalizing on its superior picks, G2 Esports won the featured match-up of the day against Evil Geniuses in a classic North America vs Europe rivalry by taking down its opponents in 31 minutes.

In the post-game interview, caPs said he missed picking up wins against North America. Responding to jojopyun’s trash talk, he said that he respected it. He added “I feel like a lot of the NA teams are humble and it feels good to see someone show a bit more confidence in their own abilities. I feel like they [EG] still have a way to go and of course, there’s still the rest of the tournament for them to show up. If he [jojopyun] wants to talk a big game, then he will also have to match it.”

caPs also stated that G2 Esports had been practicing with the Anivia quite a lot throughout the year and he opined that EG and ORDER are not the top dogs of the tournament. “I’m sure we’ll get even better in the Group Stage.”

CaPs picks up first blood again

CaPs on the Anivia picked up the first kill of the match against Ryze, thanks to Raphaël "Targamas" Crabbé (Pyke) and Marcin "Jankos" Jankowski (Jarvan IV) and their timely gank. Meanwhile, Jeong "Impact" Eon-young on the Aatrox was also having a hard time laning against Sergen "Broken Blade" Çelik’s Gwen.

At 9.30 minutes, isolated fights broke out on the Summoner’s Rift but G2 Esports brute-forced the Herald and picked up its eye. At 11 minutes, after awkward fights and trading blows, the gold was still awfully close with G2 Esports having a very slim lead of around 2K. G2 Esports picked up the first tower in the bottom lane and extended its gold lead by 3K.

Kacper "Inspired" Słoma on Karthus picked up the Rift Herald the second time around and jojopyun pushed and took down G2’s top tower. EG killed Gwen by ganking her on the bottom lane and trading its top lane tower for G2’s bottom outer tower. However, at around 20 minutes, all three of EG’s outer towers had fallen down.

G2 Esports sneaks Baron Nashor

While everyone expected G2 to go to the fourth dragon, G2 Esports used the blast cone to sneak into the Baron pit and pick up the Baron Nashor buff at 22 minutes.

Following this, G2 rushed to the Infernal Dragon, won a mini-team fight, and managed to secure its third dragon of the game. EG could not match G2’s presence on the rift as it felt like G2 was omnipresent. Impact split pushed bot lane and took down EG’s inhibitor. Using this advantage, Evil Geniuses also took down Broken Blade, who was split from his team, slowing the pace of the match.

G2 Esports picked up the Infernal Dragon soul at 28.30 minutes and the audience also witnessed Impact falling prey while chasing Victor "Flakked" Lirola Tortosa’s Zeri. Soon after this, G2 Esports secured its second Baron while Evil Geniuses recalled, ramping up a 10K gold lead.

Simply put, Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki’s Samira and Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme’s Nautilus were completely shut down since Samira needed early kills to snowball into the late game.

G2 Esports end the match in 31 minutes

At 30 minutes, G2 Esports broke open Evil Geniuses’ base and took down two inhibitors. After picking up quick kills, G2 Esports took down EG’s nexus and cemented its spot atop Group C as the favorite to make it to the Rumble Stage.