The Champions Paris group stage eliminations continued with a matchup between G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #1 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf and Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Rank #4 Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Akeman Zhang Haoran (张浩然) Demon1 Max Mazanov Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) . After an upset loss to Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #1 MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius last week, G2 recovered with a swift 2-0 victory over their lower bracket adversaries, sending home China's second seed.

For DRG, this match was for more than just Champions; they will now be forced to play in Ascension in October to defend their partnership slot after placing lower than fellow Ascension squad Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #2 Viva Lifan Ran (冉立凡) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) coconut Colin Patrick Chung (钟弘祖) , while XLG automatically retain their spot. DRG is also the third team from China to be eliminated without a win, leaving XLG as the only remaining team to represent the region.

The series commenced on DRG's pick of Lotus. Both teams used the same compositions they had shown in their opening matches, with DRG going for double-Duelist and G2 picking Tejo and Fade. Off the back of Akeman , DRG got off to a roaring start; the Waylay player found 15 kills in the first eight rounds to secure his team a 6-2 lead despite dropping the second round anti-eco.

Akeman charges forward and mows down G2.

G2 broke the streak of rounds with a signature Stinger buy win in round 9. From there, they found the answers to DRG's proactive reclears, recovering to a 6-6 half. Extending their momentum with a pistol round won by JonahP in a 1v1 against Demon1 , the North American representatives steamrolled with a near-perfect defense to a clear-cut 13-7 win.

jawgemo and leaf make for a deadly duo on the C site.

Akeman cooled off after his early performance, ending the map with 20 kills. leaf was instead the one who stole the show, winding up with a 23/12/6 KDA, 193 ADR, and 1.59 rating on Viper.

G2 selected Abyss next, making it both teams' first foray into the map since its return to the pool. DRG carried on with Waylay-Yoru, while G2 surprised with trent on Tejo and leaf on Deadlock. This time, G2 led with a 6-2 start of their own, dominating the early buy rounds after nearly losing the second anti-eco. Much like their opponents on Lotus, DRG refused to yield, stringing together four in a row to equalize the half at 6-6.

The second half was all G2—jawgemo came alive, pulling off an impossible Frenzy 1v4 in the pistol round to take it for his team. DRG attempted to fight back in, but G2's stalwart postplants only widened the gap, enabling them to win Abyss 13-7. jawgemo ended the map with an impressive 23/13/9 KDA and 197 ADR on Yoru.

jawgemo silences DRG against all odds.

With this win, G2 sends DRG home and will face T1 T1 Korea Rank #3 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) DH Kang Dong-ho (강동호) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) on Monday for the final playoff spot in a rematch of the Masters Bangkok grand finals.

The group deciders will begin tomorrow with the following matches: