Pro League Season 8: G2 Esports mark history, taking home a new trophy

It has been a thrilling weekend of Rainbow Six: Siege action from the Pro League Finals held in Rio de Janeiro. Hosted in an Olympic stadium, backed by the raucous chorus of about 9,000 Brazilian fans thronging the venue.

Mock-it Esports’ BakaBryan made his debut at LAN -- and that too in his very first Pro League season alongside Korey. Defying the odds, though, they finished second in Europe, and gave home-favourites FaZe Clan a stiff challenge, but lost 1-2 in the opening game of the event. The next game also saw Rainbow Six history being made, as NORA-Rengo (NR) got revenge over Rogue for their Season 7 LAN Quarter-Finals loss, and became the first Asia-Pacific (APAC) team to make it to the Semi-Finals of an international tournament.The third game was no less electric, and saw one of the biggest upsets in Rainbow Six esports yet. The Australians had to have Dizzle, their coach, play in place of their captain, Magnet, due to surgery. Fnatic played with absolutely no fear and left the North Americans with no answer as they marched to a brilliant 2-0 victory. The final quarter-final game featured the other Brazilian side, Immortals, going up against the titanic G2 Esports. While Immortals would give the Europeans a stiff challenge, G2 Esports would recover in their customary fashion to take the series 2-0.

With two APAC teams in the Semi-Finals for the first time ever, and North America (NA) getting sent home in the first round yet again, the second day was a completely different affair from what most had been expecting. The first semi-final had FaZe Clan take on NORA-Rengo, with the Brazilian team booking a slot in the Grand Final. The second semi-final, FNATIC and Coach Dizzle would be unable to replicate his heroics from the first day against Evil Geniuses, and G2 Esports would tear through the Australians for the first 12-0 on PC at LAN Finals. This meant that for a second season in a row, G2 Esports would be playing a Brazilian team in the Grand Final.

Of any region in the Pro League, Latin America (LATAM) had been the only one to have been able to take down the fearsome G2 Esports -- the first time being Black Dragons (now Ninjas in Pyjamas) in Sao Paulo, Brazil in Season 6, and the second time being Team Liquid in Season 7.

In a post-match interview with stage host Matt Andrews, cameram4n admitted that the team knew they would have effectively lost the game if they failed to beat G2 Esports on Bank. While FaZe was able to keep pace with their European counterparts for most of the first map, with neither team able to establish a two-round lead, it was at 4-4 that G2 Esports pulled away, winning the map on the back of some brilliantly aggressive Jackal play from Kantoraketti. G2 Esports then progressed to Coastline -- a map that they had played and won on seven times, and FaZe had banned nine times in the season. Initially, it seemed that FaZe would be able to match G2 Esports as the scoreline once again progressed from 1-0 to 1-1, and then to 2-2, but that was all the mixed-EU roster needed to read their opponents. They swept FaZe away in the next four rounds, thus winning their fifth-ever title -- and their first Pro League championship since Season 5.

Followers of the EU Pro League would have been unsurprised with this title, as the team had been dominant as per usual throughout the entirety of Season 8. Their online play saw them drop points just once in a draw prior to the mid-season break, and while they suffer a 4-6 loss to PENTA Sports, it was clear that they were being conservative with their strategies in preparation for the Finals. With this victory, G2 Esports flexed their muscles once again on the international stage, and threw down the gauntlet to every other Pro League team to try and break their dominance at the top.