G2’s incredible eight-event playoff streak in Counter-Strike 2 is in jeopardy as the IEM Dallas champions enter this week’s BLAST Premier Spring Final without star AWPer m0NESY, who can’t make the trip to the U.K. due to a visa issue.
The organization announced coach TaZ will enter the server with the team in a June 10 post on X (formerly Twitter), replacing the star AWPer for BLAST Spring Finals. The team will once more need to defy the odds with a stand-in if they hope to keep their playoff streak alive, with G2 making the finals of every offline CS2 tournament they’ve attended dating back to the sequel’s launch last September.
The G2 social team joked it was “wanting to recreate the success from Dallas,” where the squad took out the tier-one event despite the absence of captain HooXi, who attended his sister’s wedding. With Stewie2K, shot-caller NiKo led the squad to its first win in CS2. However, the absence of wunderkind m0NESY might be a step too far for G2 this time.
The 19-year-old Russian sniper has been the standout player of 2024, recording a remarkable 1.34 HLTV rating across 70 LAN maps this year. To many pundits, only Vitality’s ZywOo comes close individually. As a result, the Russian’s absence will leave a sizeable hole that many struggle to see filled by the Polish coach, who last hit the server competitively with HONORIS way back in March 2023.
Following that HONORIS stint and the team’s demise, TaZ announced his retirement from competitive play and moved to a coaching role. He then eventually landed in the G2 setup ahead of the 2024 competitive season.
It is unclear who will wield the big green for G2, although we have seen NiKo play a hybrid role with the rifle before. The IEM Dallas champs will open their BLAST Premier Spring Finals campaign against Donk’s Team Spirit on June 12 at 1:30pm CT.
