The second upper semifinal match at Champions Shanghai saw Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #1 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen PROFEK Dawid Święć Derke Nikita Niko Sirmitev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu bring G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #3 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf back down to earth in 2-0 fashion, keeping EMEA's hopes going into the top three and earning their place in the Mercedes-Benz Arena.

The series played out on Abyss and Split. Vitality staved off a G2 comeback on Abyss in regulation to win 13-11 and followed up with a dominant 13-4 performance on Split.

G2 continued to opt into Abyss as their home map pick after thrashing Team Liquid and 100 Thieves on it in their last two matches. Both teams' compositions featured a Harbor-Astra backline and a different double-Duelist frontline, with G2 favoring Neon-Waylay and Vitality going for Jett-Yoru.

Vitality seized an immediate lead on their attack, converting the bonus with a patient 3v5 siege on the B site and following up with several successful postplants on both bombsites. The half ended 9-3 in Vitality's favor after trent pulled out a 1v3 clutch to secure G2 their third round.

G2 began to mount a comeback on their own attack side, similarly converting the bonus and thriving in site hits and postplants to draw the score all the way to 11-11. However, Vitality held strong in the final moments of regulation, taking the last two rounds to thwart the comeback and win 13-11. Jamppi led Vitality from the front as Yoru with 22 kills, second only to BABYBAY 's 23.

Over on Split, Vitality opened with another strong attacking side, going up 8-4 despite losing the pistol. The EMEA squad primarily found success through A postplants and patient midrounds, which created opportunities for the in-form Vitality players to outduel their opponents. After Vitality won the second pistol, G2 responded with four consecutive force buys, all of which were foiled by Vitality as they won out 13-4. The Duelists Derke and Chronicle led the server with a combined 35 kills in 17 rounds.

From the Press Room

G2 JoshRT on the loss on Abyss: “I think we lost our composure a little bit, where we had advantaged scenarios and we didn't know how to play out of the next situation, and there were just a lot of fundamental mistakes that we're making…scouting them, I felt like we were looking at ourselves in the mirror a little bit stylistically; they like to play the map a little bit, work out what to do, and today they did a much better job in beating us there.”

VIT Jamppi on making the top three and playing in the Mercedes-Benz Arena: “It feels insane…I don't think I've ever played in that big [of an] arena, the crowd was amazing today and being top three obviously is a big achievement because it's the best result I've ever had and doing it with this team feels incredible.”

VIT Chronicle on the upcoming rematch versus LOUD: “It's always fun to play against some rookies because they give a lot of energy with these matches. They also bring something new that you might not expect, so again, it's super fun and I think we will enjoy another match against them in the upper final.”

Up Next

Vitality will next take on the fearless upstarts LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #1 lukxo Lucca Travaioli DaviH David Cruz Darker Sebastián Castro Cicuamia erde Roberto Lobos tkzin Enzo Zimiani loan once again in the upper final on Friday, Oct. 16 for a coveted grand final spot. G2, down to one life, will face T1 T1 Korea Rank #2 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) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) tomorrow in a fateful elimination match.