Going into the VCT Americas Stage 2 Play-Ins, regional powerhouse G2 Esports was at a crossroads with its identity. From double-duelist to off roles and back to old comfort roles, G2 has looked every which way to find who they are as a team. With 18 Champs Points to its name, barring disaster, G2 is likely a lock for Champions Shanghai, meaning there is some freedom to try out new variations of themselves.
Going into its matchup against a FURIA squad that struggled through the group stage, many looked for this game to be a “get-right game” for the G2 players to get back onto their feet. However, G2 dropped the series 2-1 as they continue to try to find who they are.
Ult Orb spoke with Andrej “BABYBAY” Francisty after the match and discussed the team going back to old comps and identities, how to stay positive through struggles, and the upcoming matchup vs. M80.
Here’s the full interview transcribed.
Entree: What’s up, y’all? My name is Andre Hopkins, also known as EntreeInterview, and today I’m joined here by G2 BABYBAY. How are you feeling?
BABYBAY: Sh*t, not too great, but I mean it’s not the end anyway.
Entree: Of course, you know G2, resilient team, always bounces back, so I’ll jump right into it.
Entree: So first question here: We saw the double G2, the signature Stinger force on Split, and then once on Haven. I mean, will we kind of see this going forward? Is that just like very strong in this kind of meta?
BABYBAY: We were just experimenting with some stuff, you know. And I mean, we used to be a team that forced a bunch back like last year, so figured let’s just see how it works out, and I think we won a couple, right?
Entree: Yeah. I mean, do you think that more teams should kind of look towards forcing as a strategy? Do you think it’s kind of underrated?
BABYBAY: I think it depends. I think it depends on your team. I mean, if if the opponent doesn’t know that you’re going to do it, that’s when it’s like the best that you can do it, you know. But I feel like, you know, as you play the series, like it kind of loses its effect, you know. So, like that, I don’t think we forced on the third map at all. And yeah, because like if you’re ready for it, then you just, like, you know how to play better against these guns. It’s kind of like a surprise factor, more so than anything, yeah.
Entree: Just kind of, you said the more you do it, teams expect it, and so it kind of loses the factor of being able to catch somebody off guard.
BABYBAY: Yeah, yeah. It’s like you want to catch them, you know, you want to catch them when they’re not like expecting it, and like maybe like kind of disrespecting the fact that you might have classics and stuff like that. So that’s when it’s best to bring it out. And yeah, I mean we caught them a couple times, so it was good. I think by the third map, though, they kind of, they probably would have assumed that we were going to do that, you know. So yeah,
Entree: Out here thinking they won’t expect it the second time. They’ll never see it happening. They never expect it this time.
Entree: So we kind of saw the team struggle today on the pistol rounds. I mean, going. I think going 1-5. What do you think caused those struggles?
BABYBAY: I’m not really sure because it’s just like so different. It’s so hard to give an opinion. Like when I was playing the whole time, because I just don’t remember. There’s so much we played. Don’t even remember the pistol rounds. The most recent one I could remember was like the Breeze defense pistol round, and that was just like, just me and Jawgemo just couldn’t connect on like that left side pillar fight, and that’s what that came down to. But the other ones I can’t really say. I know we won the attack Breeze pistol. That was dope. So fire, but yeah, I mean, maybe it was both pistols, but we forced, and one I think on attack. So it’s like, okay, whatever. You know, the defense pistol on Haven. I don’t even remember. Don’t even remember what happened, bro. Couldn’t even tell you.
Entree: Yeah, always tough without actually like watching it back and seeing where the mistakes were. Of course.
BABYBAY: Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I’ll have to watch the VOD and see what see what actually happened in this match.
Entree: Okay, and then we saw the team kind of go back to the old Haven comp that you guys were playing towards, I think the beginning of kickoff. I mean, what was the decision behind going back to the old composition?
BABYBAY: I mean, trying to figure out what we wanted to play on the map, and like we’re not running the Neon-Phoenix, so we were like, “Hmm, let’s try this. Worked really well for us in scrims. I think it worked really well in the match too. We just had like a pretty bad defense, but if we fix that, then you know that that could have been a 2-0 game. So I could say the same about Breeze though. Like our defense on Breeze was kind of cooked as well. So yeah.
Entree: I mean, a lot of teams have talked about that defense side on Breeze being super difficult. So many teams. NRG, LEV. Do you kind of agree with those same sentiments?
BABYBAY: Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely an attack-sided map for sure, and yeah, defense is just hard. Like, and I feel like even with the Chamber, like I, I got so much utility out and all this stuff, and there’s just still more for them to just like come into sight and kill us with. Um, yeah, it’s, and that comp especially is a tough comp to play against. I think that’s like the best, you know, that’s like the best comp on the map at the moment. 100 Thieves made that one popular, right? So, yeah, it’s difficult to deal with. I think, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I like it’s like we haven’t played against it before. We played against it; it was just, you know, we just got outplayed a bit. I mean, it happens, you know, they played it well.
Entree: Do you think the kind of struggles on defense half are more from the geometry of the map or just the meta we’re in, or is it kind of both?
BABYBAY: Ooh, probably a little bit of both. You know, yeah. I mean this meta has just been Neon-Phoenix, and the way that that composition works is like it’s just so strong on the hit. It’s like, yeah, I don’t know. It’s very difficult to deal with the hit unless maybe you have your own. I mean, that’s like we could – we have our tools of dealing with it, you know what I mean. But I think that you have like two Cypher smokes. You’ve got two Harbor Coves around, maybe three, maybe three if you get into like post plant. Then you have a Harbor wall, a Neon wall, a character that also closes the gap with those smokes up when it’s time to go, and then what Phoenix wall as well. So there’s just a lot of like cutting sight lines down and allowing you to like get up close and personal where like that Phoenix flash now becomes really good, and like especially with the Harbor, you’re kind of able to create like your own fights, so like your team knows like where the gaps are in the walls and stuff, and like where the enemies could be. So yeah, I mean it’s just a pretty difficult comp to deal with. And then, like yeah, I think the Cypher adds its own like little element because like what’s lacking in that composition is like info. But when you put the Cypher in there, now you get more info. You know, because of the camera. So yeah, it’s a pretty well-rounded comp for the map, and yeah, I would have never expected like a solo Harbor comp to be good, you know. But it’s pretty hard to deal with.
Entree: I remember right before Masters London, I went. “Finally, Neon is gone”, and she didn’t go anywhere. She’s still here.
BABYBAY: Yeah, man, character’s pretty broken.
Entree: Yeah, it’s ridiculous. Been like super strong since what, the beginning of the year, even through nerfs.
BABYBAY: Yeah, yeah. I thought the same thing when they changed the. What did they change about her?
Entree: It was like the jumping speed, and then she lost fuel.
BABYBAY: Yeah, I thought, dude, I thought maybe that would do it, but it’s actually the slide. It’s the slide that makes the character broken. Yeah, dude, the slide is just insane.
Entree: It’s so crazy. It’s like, yeah, character is just everywhere, every map. It’s good. It’s crazy. So, I mean, we know you very positive player. You get very hyped on stage. What do you think the best way to keep a positive mentality and, you know, smile and laughing on stage in games where it’s you’re struggling, or the team is struggling, or you’re down? What do you think the best way to do that is?
BABYBAY: I mean, buddy, I was getting bodied on like every map I played today. It was very difficult, but like I still stayed in it the whole time. I was very positive because it’s a team game, and just because one person is having an off day or whatever it may be, maybe one person is sick, that doesn’t mean that you automatically lose. You know, so you still got to stay in it, do your job, which I think I was doing to the best of my ability. And yeah, I mean, listen, performance-wise, individually, like mechanics-wise, yeah, it wasn’t my best showing, but you know, listen. You carry some games, and sometimes you bot out in some games, and that’s just, it what it is.
Entree: Yeah, and so it’s kind of just a lot of don’t let it get to you. Just keep playing your game.
BABYBAY: Yeah, because like if I’m sitting here, dude, I think the first map I had like seven kills. I mean, maybe if I let that affect me really bad in the second map, I have like f*cking five, like or maybe I pi. You know what I mean. Like who knows? You know what I mean. Like I was still hitting some decent shots. It was just there were moments where, like, I felt like on any other day I probably would have gotten like multis a lot more, like maybe 2k’s at the bare minimum, and it just wasn’t coming together for me. So
just, you know, tough performance for me. Sucks that it’s happening towards the end of the year because I feel like I’ve been very consistent all year long in terms of how I play. It’s pretty annoying, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just gotta move forward. We’re not out of the tournament, you know. We play M80 next, I believe, so that’ll be a fun match.
Entree: That’s one of my next questions. How do you feel, kind of going into that matchup? Get to see you versus NiSMO. I’m sure there’ll be 1000 jokes on Twitter about it.
BABYBAY: That’s going to be so funny. Combined age of 60-something, right? In that server with just me and him.
Entree: I think he’s 32.
BABYBAY: Bro. Yeah, listen, it’s gonna be hilarious. It’s gonna be a good game. Like we’re both uncs. It’s gonna be the battle of the uncs, bro. So I’m pretty excited for it. Yeah, I’ll play better too in that next game. It won’t be a performance like today. So that’s good to look forward to.
Entree: It’ll be the Unc-Off. It’s gonna be crazy. We get a duo picture of you guys.
BABYBAY: The Unc-Off. I hope I can get a picture with NiSMO, bro. My Lebanese brother. We’re both Lebanese too, which is so funny.
Entree: Wow, I mean, it fits right into place. It’s perfect. So, a fan question here. Who just wanted to ask, what’s the difference between Valyn’s calling and other IGLs that you know or you’ve played with that makes G2 such a consistent team?
BABYBAY: Well, I mean, like it’s not like I played with that many IGLs in my career. Like I basically had like Flyuh and POISED as like my main IGLs, and like on Faze, it was kind of just like all of us just, picking and choosing. I would say the difference is, well, valyn kind of calls in a way where you know, it’s kind of similar to POISED where there is like he thinks about conditioning, but the difference is like Valyn is able to adapt more of his calling. I feel like, and also, you know, we have Josh(RT) who provides like really strong game plans for giving like a start for valyn to work with, you know, and then once he like gets his start, like he knows how to like manipulate through the rest of the half based off of like the game plan, right? So I think that’s the main thing. Definitely one of the smartest players like I’ve played with. Every time I talk to him and like we’re talking about like the game, he thinks about it in like a very intelligent way, and like you can constantly learn something from him, so yeah, I would say that. And then also, like, obviously, he can shoot very, very f*cking well. So, excuse my language, but yeah, I mean that as well. You know, POISED was able to do that too and Flyuh as well. But I feel like valyn shoots very hard.
Entree: I mean, we’ve seen kind of Harbor come into fashion recently on Breeze. As one of the first teams who played Harbor on the new Breeze? Why do you think it kind of didn’t work out for you guys when you originally played it and swapped away from it?
BABYBAY: I just feel like it didn’t fit our team identity too well. You know, I mean, when you have Valyn on the team, it’s like, dude, you should just like you want him on, like Astra/Omen; he was just dropping like really, really good amounts of kills when we were like playing like this whole year, last year as well. So it’s like, okay, we noticed that I feel like sometimes when we put him on Harbor, like it kind of affected his fragging power, you know. So it’s like, why do that when he has like his really cool plays and stuff like that that he can do on Astra? And yeah, I mean, we know Harbor’s good, but this is like this is just the way that we wanted to go. And like, I don’t think anyone regrets it, you know. Yeah, like a lot of people think of Breeze now, and they’re watching, like, you know the 100 Thieves comp, and they’re like, “Harbor’s insane.” We know, but it’s like you don’t need it to win the map. Like I think we’ve beaten, we’ve beat Nongshim not playing Harbor, you know, at EWC. We’ve beaten other teams on Breeze not playing Harbor as well. So yeah.
Entree: Just fits better. Astra and Omen kind of fit better for G2?
BABYBAY: Yeah, and it’s not that like Valyn was bad at Harbor either. Like he had some crazy moments. Like I don’t know if you like you remember Abyss at all, but like he was one of the first people like to play it on Abyss at Santiago, and he was going crazy on it. So yeah, I mean, yeah.
Entree: I mean, I think I have time for one last question. So I ask everybody this. I have a playlist I make with song recommendations. Do you have a song you’d like to add to the playlist?
BABYBAY: Yeah, hold up. Let me go on my Spotify real quick.
Entree: I’m excited. This is one of my favorite questions to ask because you get such a wide range of answers, ones I don’t expect.
BABYBAY: Let me think, bro. It’s a good one, dude. There’s so many good songs, but I’ll probably do a Bad Bunny song. Like, what? What kind of vibe are you looking for, bro? Yeah, honestly,
Entree: We got everything in there. I just said to ask; I just tell people, yeah, anything you can think of, we got. We got gospel music in there. We got rap music. We got pop music. It’s crazy in there.
BABYBAY: One sec, one sec. Let me think. Actually, you know what? I’ll do something different. I’m not gonna do… Normally, I would do Bad Bunny, but I think I’m gonna do a Tems song. I think Wickedest by Tems.
Entree: Okay, Wickedest by Tems.
BABYBAY: Yeah, yeah, I like that one. That’s a good one.
Entree: I’ll make sure to add it in there.
BABYBAY: Normally it would be a bad bunny song, but that’s a good one.
Entree: What’s different this time?
BABYBAY: I don’t know. Just want to mix it up. Maybe you like
some singing. Put some singing on the playlist. You know.
Entree: Yeah, I don’t think we have much of that on there. So I think that’s all we have time for. So BABYBAY, per usual. Thank you very much for your time. Good luck in the rest of Play-Ins and up against M80, and have a great rest of your night.
BABYBAY: Thank you so much, bro. Appreciate you, man.
