Nexa assures G2\u2019s LAN buff \u201cis real\u201d as team reach PGL Major semifinals Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoWith G2 Esports through to PGL Major Stockholm\u2019s semi-finals, Nemanja \u2018nexa\u2019 Isakovi\u0107 confirmed that his team are a completely different beast on LAN. G2 advanced to the semi-final stage of the Stockholm Major with a convincing 2-0 victory against hometown favorites NIP. The win was decorated by an imperious display from Nikola \u2018NiKo\u2019 Kova\u010d, who posted a series-high 1.44 rating. It has been a stunning run from G2 in Stockholm, where they have yet to drop a map after four matches. Such results come in sharp contrast to their poor online form, adding more fuel to the notion that the team is benefitting from a LAN buff. Teams play differently on LAN (Timestamp starts at 4:45 for mobile viewers) When explaining G2\u2019s spike in form at the Major, nexa alluded to the fact that opponents are taking fewer risks on LAN, while his team also benefit from being in the same location. \u201cThe LAN buff is real,\u201d he told Dexerto. \u201cWe had disastrous results online, but when we come to LAN it\u2019s just different. I feel like all of our players are made to play on LAN, we feed off this energy and the fact that we can fist-bump each other, push each other and cheer each other on. \u201cWe just make things way simpler. It\u2019s easier to play on LAN. People are not making the same plays and are not being overly aggressive. They always give you space and there are opportunities for you to win 3v5s, which we have won multiple times. \u201cThey have to respect you on LAN because it\u2019s way different. Online, you have the help of the coach, he can speak whenever he wants. It\u2019s a completely different game.\u201d Embracing the villain role As G2 won the first map against NIP, Nemanja \u2018huNter\u2019- Kova\u010d triumphantly cupped his hand to his ear and was greeted with boos from the Avicii Arena crowd, who were heavily in the Ninjas\u2019 favor. It was a move that caught everyone by surprise, including nexa himself. \u201cIt was funny that he reacted like that,\u201d nexa said. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing with him for many years, and it was the first time I\u2019ve seen him show this kind of emotion. \u201cI knew after that round that Mirage was going to be another comfortable win because the Kova\u010d cousins were on, and it\u2019s very hard for us to lose when that happens.\u201d Nexa also admitted that fighting against the crowd gave his team an extra boost of motivation. \u201cI think we prefer it like this,\u201d he said when asked about being the villains on stage. \u201cI think there\u2019s a special kind of pressure when you\u2019re playing in front of the home crowd and everyone is cheering for you and expecting you to win. \u201cIt may have put additional pressure on the guys from NIP. Even though I think we played pretty well, I think they didn\u2019t play up to their usual standard. \u201cIt could be nerves, it could be pressure. I think them being the favorites and playing in front of their own crowd kind of added to it, so I\u2019m glad we were in this position where the crowd was against us, it felt like another opponent for us to fight and we were glad to shut them up.\u201d DJ Esports odds: G2 are backed at 1.640 to beat Heroic in the semi-finals Odds correct at the time of writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nexa assures G2\u2019s LAN buff \u201cis real\u201d as team reach PGL Major semifinals Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoWith G2 Esports through to PGL Major Stockholm\u2019s semi-finals, Nemanja \u2018nexa\u2019 Isakovi\u0107 confirmed that his team are a completely different beast on LAN. G2 advanced to the semi-final stage of the Stockholm Major with a convincing 2-0 victory against hometown favorites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}