It wouldn’t be a competitive LoL off-season without G2 Esports being accused of player tampering and/or poaching by at least one other organization. Now, don’t mistake this for complaining as it is not — we’re quite happy that someone’s willing to play the role of a “heel” and break some rules on their path to greatness! Then again, G2’s (and, by proxy, Carlos “ocelote” Rodríguez Santiago’s) methods can, at times, be a bit too illicit and shady, so your own stance on the matter might differ.

According to Jacob Wolf, MAD Lions has accused G2 of player tampering and had pushed for a vote in a recent LEC team owners’ meeting for Riot’s global esports department to “revise the global tampering and poaching rules.” Most teams (eight out of ten) voted “yes,” with G2 and Vitality voting “no.” The reasoning behind Vitality’s vote was rather simple: they had felt that the current rules were good but were badly enforced and that newer ones wouldn’t change much (if anything at all).

The fact that G2 is once again being accused of player tampering should really come as no surprise — this will be the first time in the organization’s history that it’ll miss out on Worlds. And for an org that’s so used to winning and generating record amounts of buzz, this is uncharted territory. Naturally, G2 wants to return to its winning ways, but that’s not going to come easy — we’re witnessing the birth of a wholly different status quo, and there’s very little that G2 can do about it (with or without poaching).

There are some new kids on the block, as evidenced by MAD and Rogue’s immense performances throughout the last two years.

There are many wild rumors circulating online about G2’s 2022 line-up and while most of them are exciting and provocative, it’s worth mentioning that there’s no way for us to know what’ll happen this early on — the off-season period isn’t set to begin until mid-November. So, naturally, take everything you read with a grain of salt.

With that being said, we’re definitely expecting huge, sweeping changes over at the G2 camp, and no one’s all too safe other than Rasmus “Caps” Winther who had just signed a contract extension. G2 is supposedly interested in signing Matyáš “Carzzy” Orság, but it’s hard to imagine a good enough reason why he’d go from a championship-winning team (back-to-back, no less) to an organization that is obviously on the decline.

Additionally, G2 has been allowed to try out Viktor “Flakked” Lirola (current MAD Lions Madrid marksman), although nothing will probably come of it. 

It goes without saying, but the folks over at G2 are under an immense amount of pressure and there’s very little they can offer to these young talents other than a legacy that has lost a bit of its lustre.

In fact, poaching at this point in time reeks of desperation and is definitely not a good look.

In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what G2 does next and which players this venerable European giant will end up signing. That, of course, will heavily affect its chances of once again reclaiming the LEC throne come 2022. Having a player like Caps in the mid lane is obviously a great centerpiece for G2 to build around, but a spectacular mid laner is only a small part of the equation — G2 will need to find the right pieces of the puzzle if it wants to stand a chance of mounting a comeback.