G2 bench SunPayus after one year and a Major quarter-final exit

Six days separate the longest match of G2's season from the first change to the five that played it. On June 25, 2026, G2 announced that SunPayus is moved to the bench, HLTV, the reference news site for Counter-Strike, reported that afternoon. The Spanish player had held the team's AWP, the game's sniper rifle, since July 2025.

HLTV's report carries no explanation from the club. It notes only the timing: the decision comes shortly after G2 lost to Spirit in the quarter-finals of the IEM Cologne Major, the season's main tournament.

The four other players stay, and so does the coach. The AWP did not stay unassigned for long, since G2 presented a new sniper less than half an hour after the benching became public.

What G2 announced on June 25

The announcement concerns one seat. SunPayus, 27, leaves the active lineup after one year. According to HLTV he averaged a 1.05 rating across his time with the team, a rating being the single figure the site computes for every professional player from his statistics.

The rest of the roster is unchanged: huNter-, MATYS, HeavyGod and NertZ remain, with sAw as coach. The most recent arrival among them, NertZ, came from Liquid on March 13 in an exchange for malbsMd, HLTV reported at the time.

The role SunPayus held is a particular one. A team gives the AWP to one specialist, the AWPer, and builds part of its play around where he stands. That is why a change in this seat is more than a swap of one name for another: the four others adjust to a different sniper.

One year with the AWP

SunPayus joined in July 2025. His stay brought one major trophy: he was part of the lineup that won the BLAST Open London 2025 Finals. HLTV's report of June 3 on HeavyGod's contract recalls that G2 took the grand final of that tournament three maps to two.

The same report describes the team's wider record in the period. Since early 2025, G2 has been a stable presence at most big events, usually reaching the playoffs or falling just short in the last matches of the group stage. A second title came this spring at Stake Ranked Episode 1, shortly after NertZ signed.

The club had also been securing the group around him. On June 3, as its Stage 2 campaign in Cologne began, G2 announced a multi-year contract extension for HeavyGod, who joined in January 2025.

SunPayus's own figures stayed level to the end. Over the three months before the benching, HLTV credits him with a 1.07 rating across 80 maps, slightly above his 1.05 average for the year.

Five hours against Spirit

The match that precedes the decision was played on June 19 in the LANXESS arena in Cologne. It was a quarter-final in best-of-three format: the first team to win two maps advances, a map being one game of the series.

G2 won the first map and led the second 4-0 before Spirit came back and took it in overtime, the extra rounds played when a map ends level. The third map lasted 47 rounds. HLTV counted four overtimes on that map and noted that G2 had led it 8-4 during its attacking half.

SunPayus finished the series with 64 kills and 56 deaths and a 1.03 rating, the fourth-best figure of the five G2 players. HLTV's account lists him among the players who had standout moments, with four kills in one round, and also records a one-against-one duel he lost late on Dust2 with the score at 12-11.

The match itself drew a crowd online. HLTV, quoting the data firm Esports Charts, reported a peak of 2,044,763 concurrent viewers, the highest figure recorded for Counter-Strike 2. The previous record, 1,853,954, dated from the grand final of the PGL Copenhagen Major. No match other than a grand final had passed two million before, the site wrote. Among all Counter-Strike events, including those played on the previous version of the game, only the PGL Majors of Stockholm, with 2,748,434, and Antwerp, with 2,113,610, show a higher peak in the list HLTV printed.

G2's best Major since 2024

The quarter-final was a defeat at the end of a long run. A Major is one of the championships sponsored by Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike. Reaching the last eight in Cologne gave G2 its first Major playoff appearance since Shanghai in 2024, HLTV wrote on June 15. At the two Majors in between, the team had finished between 9th and 11th.

G2 entered the tournament in Stage 2, the second of three opening stages. It finished that stage with three wins and one loss: victories over Monte, M80 and BIG, and a defeat by FUT. The series against BIG on June 8 was the clearest, 13-3 on Inferno and 13-8 on Mirage.

Stage 3 was tighter. Under Valve's Major rulebook it is a bracket of 16 teams in the Swiss format, in which teams with the same record meet each other, and only the best eight go on to the playoffs. G2 opened with a narrow loss to Falcons, then beat FUT. On June 14 it won a match against Legacy that it could not afford to lose. The next day it beat Natus Vincere two maps to one for a place in the playoffs: a 13-11 loss on Dust2, a 16-14 win on Inferno in overtime and a 13-10 win on Mirage. Natus Vincere were ranked second in the world.

That series was close in both directions. G2 led the first map 11-7 and lost it, HLTV's report says, then saw a 12-8 lead on Inferno disappear before winning in overtime. The defeat ended Natus Vincere's tournament, their first Major without a playoff place since Shanghai.

The coach had spoken about his AWPer during that stage. In an interview published by HLTV on June 12, sAw said SunPayus was having a hard tournament. He added that the player was generally in the right positions, and that the difficulty lay in confidence and in landing his shots. He wanted him to find again the form of the events that came just before Cologne.

In the deciding series against Natus Vincere, SunPayus posted 50 kills for 43 deaths and a 0.99 rating, the second-best figure of the G2 five behind HeavyGod.

The roster as it stands

With the benching, HLTV published the recent ratings of everyone concerned. They show a lineup whose five members sat close together, with one exception at the top.

The figures do not single out the benched player. His rating over the period equals those of huNter- and MATYS and sits one hundredth under NertZ's. Only HeavyGod stands clearly above the group.

The newcomer's line needs a caution. r1nkle's 1.19 rests on eight maps, a tenth of what the others played. G2 announced his signing from Ninjas in Pyjamas on June 25, 26 minutes after the benching was reported, according to the times printed by HLTV. He is a 21-year-old Ukrainian AWPer, and the site lists him in the vacancy left by SunPayus. Ninjas in Pyjamas had benched him in April, HLTV reported on April 15.

The change comes while G2 is climbing. HLTV ranked the team 14th on June 1, 13th on June 8, 12th on June 15 and seventh on June 22, the first ranking after the Major.

A second AWPer leaves the picture

The benching is not the only news about G2's snipers this week. On June 26, MIBR announced the end of kl1m's loan, HLTV reported. The 20-year-old Russian AWPer belongs to G2 and had been with MIBR since August 2025, after a year with G2 Ares, G2's academy team, from September 2024.

His return does not bring him into the main team. HLTV writes that he will not have a place in G2's lineup and that his future is uncertain. The site's ratings table credits him with 1.13 across 42 maps for MIBR over the past three months.

So three AWPers are tied to G2 at once. One starts, one is benched, and one comes back from a loan with no seat announced. G2 Ares, the academy team, was ranked 80th in the world on June 22.

What the calendar holds

The new lineup has time before it plays. HLTV gives the two next dates in its report on the signing.

Between the announcement and the start of BLAST Bounty Season 2 there are 26 days. G2 uses that time to settle a new player into the one seat it has changed.

For SunPayus, the announcement fixes a status and nothing more. He is on G2's bench, one year after arriving, with a trophy from London and a place in the most watched match Counter-Strike 2 has had.

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