G2 Eliminate T1, Reach Valorant Champions 2026 Top Four in Shanghai

G2 Esports is two matches from the Valorant Champions 2026 grand final after a 2-1 win over T1 in Lower Round 2 of the Shanghai playoffs on October 11. The result sends the last Pacific team home and leaves three Americas squads in the top four alongside EMEA’s Team Vitality.

The series was the third meeting between the two rosters since the Masters Bangkok 2025 final, and it nearly matched the script of the first two: tight halves on every map, individual stars trading multi-kills, and a decider that came down to one team’s defensive read.

G2 opened with a 13-11 on T1’s pick of Lotus, with Alexander “jawgemo” Mor and Kim “Meteor” Tae-oh each finishing the map with 27 kills. T1 answered on Abyss, closing out a back-and-forth second half 13-10 behind a 21/13/3 line from Ham “iZu” Woo-ju on Sova. The decider on Ascent was the breaking point: G2’s double-Sentinel setup of Vyse and Chamber held T1 to zero rounds on attack, turning a six-round attacking half into a 13-6 close. Nathan “leaf” Orf topped the map with 21 kills; jawgemo led the series with 58 kills and 14 first bloods.

T1 exit Champions 2026 in 5th–6th, the deepest Pacific run of the year but still short of the bracket’s final weekend. Meteor kept the focus on his teammates after the loss. “This year personally leaves a lot to be desired for me, but I think we were able to place 5th-6th place in Champions because I had really good teammates who [have] my back,” he said in the press room.

G2 head coach JoshRT framed the rest of the tournament as unfinished business. “It’s just one weekend that separates us from the ultimate goal, to lift the trophy at this level. We never lifted an international trophy, but why not the big one, you know?”

The Shanghai bracket ahead

With the win, G2 become the third Americas team in the top four, joining 100 Thieves and LOUD. The final weekend at the Mercedes-Benz Arena opens on Friday, October 16, with the Upper Final between Team Vitality and LOUD at 1:00 AM CT. G2 follow against 100 Thieves in Lower Round 3 at 4:00 AM CT, with the winner advancing to the Lower Final on Saturday, October 17. The Grand Final is Sunday, October 18, with $1 million going to the champion of a $2.25 million prize pool. All four remaining teams are from Americas or EMEA, the first Champions bracket since 2023 with no Pacific representative on the final day.

Our read: The bracket is set up for a familiar Americas-versus-EMEA final, and the most interesting subplot is whether the Pacific region can produce another top-three finish in 2027 after T1’s exit. T1’s run to 5th-6th is their best Champions finish since 2023, and Paper Rex’s earlier elimination (5th-6th via the LR1 loss to T1) means the region still has a foothold in the international scene, but no Pacific team has lifted a Champions trophy since 2023. For G2 specifically, the real test starts now: G2 already beat 100 Thieves 2-0 in the upper bracket quarterfinals on October 8 (match recap), and a Friday rematch in Lower Round 3 gives 100T a chance to settle that score with a Lower Final berth on the line. G2 also dropped 0-2 to Vitality in the upper bracket semifinals on October 10, meaning their only path to the Grand Final now runs through two lower-bracket series.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report