The Terrorists didn't have enough grenades left to execute an A Door push.
The G2 team comms suddenly fell silent.
Fnatic's unexpected push had completely shattered G2's momentum after their string of consecutive round wins.
"If we can't do that, let's hit A Short. I can take the fight," Niko offered.
As the team's star player, Niko knew he had to do something now.
Otherwise, if things continued this way, G2's 7–1 lead could turn into a 7–8 deficit.
Aleksib had no objections to Niko's idea.
After all, Niko was G2's star player.
Most of G2's Terrorist-side strategies were built around Niko and m0NESY.
With that in mind, Aleksib nodded. "All right. We'll smoke A Short and CT Arch."
"Then throw an A Long flash to block Aether's angle. I'll jump out from CT Base and push A Long."
"..."
G2 was about to launch an explosive attack on A Short.
With their only sniper rifle watching A Long, Fnatic didn't dare risk checking Mid.
ALEX was tucked behind the box in CT Base, playing back, so he had no idea what the Terrorists were doing in Mid.
But Ma Xixi and the viewers in the Livestream Room could see it all clearly.
"Is G2 planning to speed up through A Short?"
"Fnatic's playing a 2-1-2 setup right now. Aether's at A Long, KRIMZ is on Slope, and ALEX at CT Base should find out pretty quickly that the Terrorists are coming up A Short."
"ALEX is afraid it might be a fake, so he doesn't want to move. But G2 should be going for the real thing."
"Fnatic has no information at A Long. Aether probably has to hold A Door."
"If KRIMZ goes down, Aether can only fall back to Pit."
"G2's making their move. A Short smoke, Arch smoke, fire on the sniper's angle, and a flash from A Short to force the CTs off their positions."
"KRIMZ knows someone's coming in from Short to the site."
"Will he peek?"
"He won't. He's waiting for Aether at A Long to flash for him."
"Aether's thrown it!"
"KRIMZ swings out, using the flash behind him."
"The Terrorists are all blind!"
"One, two, three!"
"The big bald guy gets a triple kill, completely shutting down G2's A Short execute."
"Only Little Li Zi at Elevator is left. He's facing a one-versus-five clutch."
"He swings out, trying to trade the kill on Aether, who threw the flash for his teammates."
"Unfortunately, Aether's already pulled out his sniper rifle."
"He can't get the trade!"
"Fnatic win the round without losing a single player!"
"..."
[Fast-forward to Little Li Zi only telling us to play default.]
[JACKZ is lost again, 2–10. Which team's viewer is this?]
[Don't be so harsh. JACKZ is a late-game hero; it's only natural to let him farm a bit early on, right?]
"Let's see what happened. Turns out Olaf modded KRIMZ's computer, and now KRIMZ's computer thinks it's 2015!"
The 0–5 round left G2's economy in ruins.
Even with their loss bonus maxed out, the roughly $3,500 each Terrorist had wasn't enough to buy full rifles and utility.
G2 had finally reached their first ECO round.
The score moved to 6–7.
Niko seemed to have lost his touch as well.
In the final two rounds of the half, G2 seemed completely lost, unable to find any direction for their attacks.
Fnatic turned the 1–7 score around and took the half 8–7.
During the break.
The G2 team comms were unusually quiet.
Only Little Li Zi kept tirelessly laying out their Second Half Pistol Round strategy.
Seven rounds on the Terrorist side was a passing grade, but going from 7–1 to 7–8 was clearly hard for everyone on G2 to accept.
"In short, Fnatic doesn't have many Terrorist-side strategies. We can win easily as long as we play default and hold our angles."
"And there are sixteen rounds in a match. Letting them take a few first is part of the fun."
Aleksib hurried to reassure his teammates before the Pistol Round began.
G2 might joke around outside the server, but during a match, they could still get discouraged easily.
"Mm," Niko replied to Little Li Zi without much expression.
Only JACKZ glanced timidly at Aleksib.
Why did that sound so familiar?
Hadn't Aleksib said the same thing the last time G2 played Anonymo in the qualifiers?
When the Second Half began, G2's players had expected things to be easier.
After all, DUST2 was considered a relatively CT-sided map.
But every member of Fnatic seemed to have found their form, and their aim was on fire.
The Terrorists rushed B in the Pistol Round. JACKZ, G2's late-game B-site anchor, got picked off in an instant.
The rotating players couldn't break through the crossfire from the site, either.
The score was 9–7. Fnatic had won the Second Half Pistol Round.
After losing the Pistol Round, G2 chose to force buy again.
But this time, neither Niko's Desert Eagle nor m0NESY's Scout Rifle could pull off the same miracles as in the first half.
Fnatic rushed A Door, instantly shattering G2's solo A Long defense.
Qin Feng's Scout Rifle also held the enemies at CT Base and A Platform from Pit.
The four remaining G2 players decided to save their guns just twenty seconds into the round.
Thanks to their analyst's review of Aether's many demos, nearly all of G2's players had a good understanding of his sniper rifle.
In their eyes, Aether was the kind of sniper who was easiest to counter—and yet, at the same time, the hardest to counter.
He was easy to counter because he usually took relatively passive positions, making him an easy target for utility-heavy executes.
And when playing Terrorist, his sniper rifle wasn't particularly good at breaking into sites. He usually relied on utility to gradually move up and take his positions.
At the same time, though, Aether was the sniper most people found hardest to counter.
He didn't look especially strong. He had neither s1mple's absurd ability to hold Mid and snap between both sides with perfect aim, nor ZywOo's seemingly wallhack-level game sense.
And yet he seemed to be the most consistent sniper in all of CSGO.
Everyone knew it was impossible to stay completely focused every second of every minute.
Even s1mple and ZywOo would lose focus for a moment while holding an angle.
But Aether seemed incapable of getting distracted.
If he was holding an angle, there was almost no chance of dry-peeking it.
Unless you had a faster sniper rifle.
That was why Aether gave Fnatic's opponents such a headache.
He hardly ever made mistakes.
With that in mind, Aleksib used the time they spent saving their guns to plan G2's strategy for the next Gun Round.
"M0NESY, I saved money this round, so I can buy you an AWP for our first Gun Round."
"But you'd better not peek Aether's sniper rifle."
"Of course, if Aether fires at another site, you can look for their rifles and take a peek."
"Other than Aether's sniper rifle, none of Fnatic's players are very good at breaking into sites."
"And Aether's the kind of sniper who uses utility to advance step by step."
"We'll play a default defense from the back and run down the clock."
"Then, when the time's right, we'll use our utility to throw the situation into chaos."
"Once we get into a firefight, our advantage in individual skill will show."
"..."
Thanks to the big brothers for the donations.
I'm bowing to you, big brothers.
Thud, thud, thud!
I'm not entirely sure about Little Li Zi's standing on the team.
After all, Big Cousin was kicked before because he didn't get along with Niko. I figure that sometimes a star player might have more say on the team than the IGL.
And Little Qian is only seventeen. He's supposed to be young and cocky!
Before you continue