G2 completes revenge for Bangkok, sends T1 home

In the second-last elimination game of the Valorant Champions 2025 group stage, two teams that met each other at the Masters Bangkok finals earlier this year fought in Group D for their right at playoffs. G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #2 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf swept T1 T1 Korea Rank #5 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) 2-0 to get revenge over their loss at Bangkok, sending a Pacific team home while guaranteeing that another number one seed will be in playoffs.

The first map was Lotus, with T1 running double-Duelist while G2 ran double-Controller. G2 won the first pistol and converted the bonus thanks to some great plays from leaf . T1 was able to recover the half slightly thanks to some great rounds with iZu and his ultimate, but valyn was strong across the entire defense to help G2 reach the half up 8-4. T1 won the second pistol to even up the pistol round wins, but leaf prevented a bonus round conversion for T1. Even with that stop to the T1 momentum, G2 were struggling against the flood retakes from T1 as the game was tied 9-9. There needed to be a star to step up, and jawgemo helped secure two C site takes to retake the lead and win the map 13-9.

The next map was Corrode, which was an expected ban for G2, who instead opted to ban Bind. T1 chose the map and ran double-Duelist again with Yoru and Waylay, while G2 moved back to double-Controller after trying the Sage composition in the past. Attacking first, G2 won the first pistol off a trent 1v1 win, but iZu played well to prevent a bonus conversion. The confidence from the G2 attack looked foreign to their previous times on the map, with leaf styling using the Outlaw and Classic early on. T1 was able to win a thrifty round off some nice Sheriff shots from Meteor , but G2 shook that off to end the first half up 8-4.

T1 needed to win the second pistol round here, just as they did on Lotus, but G2 was too clean, and Trent once again closed out the pistol round to extend the lead. DH stopped the bonus conversion, but T1 still needed to manage a comeback down 10-5. When trent sprayed three down, that effectively ended the game.

Even as T1 managed another thrifty win and threw some rounds together, using speed to their advantage on top of some star rounds from iZu and stax , leaf closed out the map 13-8 and the series 2-0. G2 eliminated T1 from Champions 2025, while keeping their title hopes alive.

The series was a battle between the two Duelists of iZu and jawgemo, but the true series star was valyn. Not only did he call well on both maps, showing a lot of improvement on Corrode, but he also ended the series with a rating of 1.28, 88% KAST, 161 ADR, and an amazing performance on Lotus to help secure the sweep win.