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G2 Esports wins the 2019 Six Invitational, sets a new record

G2 Esports has emerged triumphant in the Six Invitational, once again cementing themselves as the best Rainbow Six Siege team in the world. But it wasn't without some resistance from Team Empire, who helped them set a new RB6 Siege major record.

Ozzie Mejia

February 17, 2019 3:17 PM

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The Six Invitational came to a close on Sunday, with two of the best Rainbow Six Siege teams in the world left standing. The final two teams wasted no time in making history with the longest match in Rainbow Six Pro League major history, but in the end, only one team could call themselves champion. That team is G2 Esports, winning their second consecutive seasonal championship.

After a competitive first couple of maps, the championship came down to G2's map choice of Bank. And it was their choice for a reason, as G2 dominated the map throughout, ultimately only giving up one round to runner-up Team Empire.

The Grand Finals began in historic fashion. Team Empire came out firing, winning the first round on Coastline in commanding fashion with a perfect 5-0 sweep. G2 responded, but it wasn't easy. The third round was a shootout, one in which G2 narrowly survived long enough to defuse the bomb. Both teams remained even through the first half of the first map and continued back and forth, but G2 did pay Empire back with their own perfect round to tie things up at four rounds a piece. Unfortunately, G2 followed that with some uncharacteristic miscues involving errant grenades, leading to another Empire perfect round. With both teams wound tied at five rounds, Daniil "Joystick" Gabov gambled by running out in the open and gunning down a chunk of the G2 roster, leaving two mortally wounded and setting the table for another flawless round. Both teams continued exchanging rounds, all the way through Overtime. And that was just the beginning.

Both teams continued going back and forth through the first map's Overtime period. The first map finally ended in Round 22 (!) after G2 took an early 5-3 man advantage. Empire got antsy and tried to get aggressive, but G2 put them down to end the longest single map in Rainbow Six Pro League major history.

The teams then moved on to Border, where G2 moved to assert control. G2 beat down Team Empire, with the biggest highlight being Juhani "Kantoraketti" Toivonen tossing in a C4 round and scoring a double kill. Team Empire had a chance to make the series a little closer, but wasn't able to plant the bomb on the fifth round and time expired, giving the round to G2. Team Empire tried to rebound on the back half, but weren't able to polish off G2, who clinched with a perfect round.

For their victory, G2 Esports takes home $800,000 out of the projected $2,000,000 prize pool. The initial prize pool started out at $500,000, but gradually grew with additional revenue from Pro League item sales and revenue from the Road to Six Invitational. The Rainbow Six Siege Pro League looks to get a little more interesting, following today's full reveal for Operation Burnt Horizon. To learn more about what's coming to Rainbow Six Siege, be sure to check out our hands-on preview from earlier this week.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?