G2 and Nouns will meet in the quarter-finals of the upper grid of the group stage of IEM Dallas 2023. I don't think the Samurai are upset enough to fail here.
And the North American squad is unlikely to put up any fight either, as the majors are over - it's time to get back to familiar scenarios.
To be honest, Nouns have qualified here for free, because even in their own region they're not showing decent results. So I don't see any problem for the favourite. So here I would lean on the G2 team to win.
G2's form
The sixth team of the world ranking played well in the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Europe RMR B, but at the most important moment was defeated by Vitality and was left without a direct hit to the "legends".
Already on BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Challengers Stage, the European squad began to make amends with three confident victories over TheMongolz, Complexity Gaming and Apeks.
However, something went wrong in the main stage as G2 lost three of their four matches and then only secured one win against FURIA. Moreover, the Samurai lost to themselves, as some of the defeats are straight up embarrassing.
The latest G2 results:
- A 2-0 victory over Apeks.
- A 13-16 defeat to Vitality.
- Defeat to Bad News Eagles 13-16.
- 2-0 win over FURIA.
- 1-2 defeat at the hands of fnatic.
Best score in G2:
- Inferno - 100% wins.
- Vertigo - 50% wins.
Let's not forget that the European team is steadily banning the Overpass map.
Form Nouns
The 34th team of the world ranking ambiguously performed in the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Americas RMR, where although it got two wins, but those rivals were quite dead, and in important matches guys did not come up.
Then the North American team began to play endless ESEA Cash Cup, where they beat someone, but still without much success. Also Nouns managed to play in qualification for Gamers8 2023 where they couldn't get any further than beating Evil Geniuses.
In terms of recent results, the team was able to make it to the play-offs of ESL Challenger League Season 45 North America, where they even marked a victory over Party Astronauts.
Nouns' latest results:
- A 16-9 win over Xmplfy.
- 16-5 win over BHOP.
- 2-1 win over ATK.
- Defeat by paiN Gaming 0-2.
- 2-0 win over Party Astronauts.
Best Nouns:
- Overpass - 83% wins.
- Inferno - 79% wins.
- Ancient - 71% wins.
- Mirage - 68% wins.
- Nuke - 50% wins.
In turn, the North American team does not appear on the Anubis map.
G2 - Nouns encounter statistics
The teams have not met before.
Forecast for the match G2 - Nouns
It is difficult to think of something special when you are dealing with the TIER-2 team from North America. Well too weak team, which is dangerous against ATK and BHOP.
In their turn, G2, in spite of all the problems and the general decline, have everything in their hands in such a match. And in the majors, the team obviously didn't make it to the rounds.
Therefore, in this case, I would recommend to bet on the victory of G2 with a handicap on rounds (-5.5).