VALORANT Champions: DRX survive G2’s surge and eliminate NA’s top seed

DRX silenced G2 Esports with a 2-1 victory in the lower-bracket finals, eliminating North America's #1 seed from the VALORANT Champions. The result secures DRX a top 6 finish at least.

G2 were lively and struck first with an exceptional performance by jawgemo on Lotus to go 1-0 up. However, DRX faced their demons and showed a strong mental game to squash an impressive comeback attempt by G2 on Abyss. By the third map, DRX were in control and closed out the series with little to no resistance.

G2's Alexander "jawgemo" Mor overpowered DRX in the opening map of the series on Yuro. The American was voted MVP and for good reason. The 26-year-old had SEVEN triple kills on Map 1 alone.

Jawgemo's confidence grew as the map played out, and by the final rounds he was fearlessly diving solo to take out multiple DRX players. Four of jawgemo's 3Ks came in the last five rounds to secure G2 the opening map.

"We talked how to work on our defense yesterday and we thought we came in prepared with a solid plan on defense, and a lot of it just came down to just us making mistakes," said Termi, DRX's coach in a stage interview after Map 1.

"When it comes to playing maps 2 and 3, I think we'll put up a better performance. Map 1 was just G2's pick, we'll brush it off and hope for the best on Map 2."

DRX did brush it off at the start of Map 2, taking an 8-1 lead. G2 had the reads but DRX looked a step ahead. Yet, it was short lived. G2 went on an incredible 7 round win streak - including converting the bonus - to tie the score at 8-8.

Round 17 saw G2 take their eighth round in a row with valyn getting a 3K to deny a defuse. Given how awkwardly DRX executed the defuse they would have been forgiven for tilting. Yet they remained focused.

In Round 20, their mental fortitude was tested once more when G2's Jawgemo crashed out near the beginning of the round. DRX were unaware and appeared to have the early advantage in the round and closed it out.

It would have made the match 10-10, yet due to Jawgemo's tech issue, the round was replayed. Yet again, DRX stayed locked in.

"They lost 9 in a row, the last 3 of the first half, the first 6 of the second half. It looked like DRX were cooked quite frankly," said Evilcat in the post-match analysis.

Yet, when the match resumed DRX did not skip a beat to execute a beautiful play to take back the round that Twitch chat claimed was "robbed" from them. It was the moment the South Korean side turned momentum back in their favour. DRX sped up their retakes to take the second map 13-11 and force the third game.

The opening six rounds of Map 3 on Bind were a mirror image of Abyss, with DRX taking a 5-1 lead. However, this time G2 did not stage an emphatic comeback to draw level. The slow start came back to haunt them.

Unfortunately for G2, Cho "Flashback" Min-hyuk was on especially fine form for DRX with his best game of the series. Round 11 was Flawless (below) for the South Korean team and heading into the second half IGL MaKo was already on 17 kills.

It was a 10-2 lead for DRX heading into 2nd half, a bit of a meme given their previous match against Fnatic where they could not close it out. This time however, they closed it out without much fuss. G2 were noticeably quieter on stage, much to the delight of a very DRX-favoured Twitch chat.

"G2 are known for their trashtalking and movements across the stage, I had my eyes on them and I wanted to have a good comeback," said Kang "BeYN" Ha-bin post-win. "So once we were done I just did the bunny ears to them and I'm feeling spectacular."

DRX now face the loser of NRG versus MIBR in the lower-bracket Round 2 match.

G2 on the other hand, finish VALORANT Champions with a 7-8th place, the same placement as last year in Seoul. Yet, it will be a bitter blow given they were 2nd at Masters Bangkok and 4th at Masters Toronto.

For many VALORANT fans, this result will do some damage for their VALORANT Champions Pick 'Ems.