G2 Esports is always in the spotlight. It’s the consequence of being a leading force in esports competitions: while some follow the greatest teams, others prefer to pray for their downfall. Logically, Siege X is no exception.
Since the samurai joined Siege, the Berlin-based powerhouse have established themselves as one of the most laureated teams in the scene, with two Six Invitational hammers, one Six Major, one Pro League Final championship, and multiple minor and regional trophies.
The team's influence and success in Siege has also allowed the organization to be a pioneering force in the transfer market, making big investments to bring players from outside regions to continue being one of the best lineups in the scene. Nowadays, G2 Esports is the only team in Europe and MENA's top flight with an American-majority roster, as five of the team's seven members come from the other side of the pond.
While ups and downs are unavoidable, playing for the Berlin-based powerhouse must be the most pressuring player position in Siege; G2 Esports' investment and legacy require more success to continue to be fueled – and in G2 Esports' headquarters that only stands for more trophies.
Keeping this in mind, it's fair to say G2 Esports have been far away from meeting both the fans' expectations and arguably the team's goals set within the last year and a half.
The team's regional results were only salvaged by one-sided Last Chance Qualifier runs that would end in international fiascos – play-in elimination in Manchester, Top 16 in Montreal, and Top 12 in Boston. With the arrival of Siege X, G2 Esports' problems persisted as the team got grouped in RE:L0:AD following a 2-3 run.
As already discussed with G2 Esports' player Jack "Doki" Robertson in a pre-Six Invitational 2025 interview with the Scot, the root of the problem in the team's 2024 season was the IGL role.
Previously, Karl "Alem4o" Zarth would be the team's leading voice in-game, but that task was eventually given to Aleksi "UUNO" Työppönen. However, as G2 Esports fell apart in the Six Invitational 2025 Playoffs, the team tried a system where the back-then 19-year-old Roberto "Loira" Camargo led the comms in RE:L0:AD. Long story short, that didn’t work either.
After the team's performance in Rio de Janeiro, the samurai ended up taking the right decision to bench Aleksi "UUNO" Työppönnen. Instead, to replace the Finn, the Berlin-based powerhouse unveiled the signing of Zack "Stompn" Lamb – a former XBOX Siege content creator whose actual player career began in M80's academy lineup earlier this year.
In other words, the American 18-year-old would move locations as he would travel from Dallas, Texas, to Europe, to make his professional debut for arguably the most emblematic team in the scene, which headed to the new season after a year of underwhelming performances. Surely, a lot of responsibilities to be taken and, overall, a huge challenge to face.
Fortunately, Stompn's teammate Doki welcomed him to his house, which meant the American would have it slightly easier to adapt himself to Europe, a new culture, and, above all, loneliness – after all, although it sounds like an exciting challenge, a teenager who moves continents to play video games in a random country is also leaving family, friends, and mascots behind, so sharing a home with someone else will always make things better.
To know more about G2 Esports, the American’s adaptation to the team and Europe, and more, we have interviewed Stompn and Doki. Keep on reading to know what they had to say, or watch the interview below:
How did G2 Esports end up considering Stompn and why him?
With G2 Esports struggling so much with team communication and getting back on track seems such a hard task, viewers expected the signing of a well-experienced support player that could immediately adapt to any system and bring ideas. It's not like G2 Esports don't have the resources to splash the cash on a big name, and, after all, the team already includes players with great mechanical skills like Alexandre "BlaZ" Thomas, Doki, Loira, and Alem4o.
Instead, the samurai added just the opposite. After careful consideration, G2 Esports signed Zack "Stompn" Lamb, a former XBOX player from America mainly known for his content creation career, who had just turned 18.
"We looked at all of our options, we looked at players from Europe, we looked at players from Brazil, we looked at players from America... there were a lot of individual players available that we could get," Doki explained.
However, rather than signing experience, the Scottish player revealed that the team prioritized talent and motivation over a long, proven career in the scene.
"We said 'maybe we don't want someone who has been around the block before, who has been recycled, if you know what I mean, you don't want that kind of recycled player."
"We seen Zack, he was obviously doing in his Challenger League team, in his debut he played great, so that kind of showed to us that he wasn't just some XBOX random guy from the Jynxziverse, he's actually a good player, so it's a risk, it's obviously a risk, because you could come to Europe and be terrible, that's possible."
"This guy is really motivated to be a pro player, and he's really invested in the game, he doesn't just play it because he makes money from it, you can tell the guy loves the game, you always want someone like that on your team, that boosts everyone else's moral as well on the team," Doki added.
The Scot also explained that he actually messaged Stompn to see if he would be interested in joining the team... but the American first rejected Doki. However, two days later, G2 Esports' coach Matheus "Ramalho" Ramalho brought up the news to the team that the former M80X player would likely be the roster's reinforcement for the 2025 season.
G2 Esports' IGLing crisis
G2 Esports have been through multiple systems within the last year and a half and all of them had their positives and negatives, but there was just something that wouldn't flow as the group had expected: communication.
While individual statistics give both players and spectators a good idea of how each player's in-game performance, communication can't actually be measured. It's impossible to know what's going on inside a team while a game is being played; and, while it may sound boring and not as exciting as an ace or a clutch, communication and even language make a huge difference to any team's results.
If communication isn't flowing, something must be quickly changed – which resulted in G2 Esports benching UUNO. With the Finn out of the equation, Alem4o was handed the IGL role again.
"Alem4o has always been the guy that makes these decisions and he always has these good ideas, so he's naturally the best fit," Doki explained.
"We have history of it working and results to prove it, we just went back to it, and so far, so good," he added.
Although G2 Esports have – and still are – facing a challenge when it comes to IGLing, there's a positive in all of this: all of the players on the team are extremely vocal. As long as players share their ideas and if G2 Esports manage to fix their communication struggles, there's a big room for improvement.
How has Stompn changed G2 Esports?
Who would have thought the addition of an 18-year-old from Dallas, Texas, would drastically change the samurai in such a short time. After months of struggles, G2 Esports are slowly but steadily getting back to a much more solid place – and it just has been one month since the season kicked off. "Right now it's like a well-oiled machine," Doki said.
"You have me, Zack, and Loira doing a lot of the entry and kind of flex stuff, then you have BlaZ and Alem4o more like the backline. I think specially on some maps we haven't fixed the roles 100% so Zack has played a little bit of support on some maps but I don't think it's anything so uncomfortable for you (Stompn), it's not really bad, so I like that fact because everyone has that moment to shine."
"Like, okay, I played good this week, last week Zack played good, the first week Loira carried, and at the same time BlaZ has played so good, like, individually he has a hard role but he's doing so good, and Alem4o he's IGLing so good that the calls are winning us the games, like stuff he has never practiced before just mid-game adaptations... in that aspect, the team is working great. I think Alem4o said he just can't kill anybody but... he doesn't need to, he's winning us the rounds with the calls and we all know he's one of the best players in the game so it's like whatever if he has negative stats or whatever, who cares about this," he explained.
Although Doki had great words for all of his teammates, the Six Invitational 2023 champion praised BlaZ's job, defining it as crucial for the team.
"BlaZ has been one of the pillars of the team in recent months, because he took a step back from his usual role that he has played for all of his career, and he's playing more of a support, flex, kind of filling the gaps, playing the shit roles, Maverick and walls open, that type of thing... and he's doing really good, he has not dipped in performance at all, I would even say it has been the other way, his performance went skyhigh, he's really vocal, which is helping, he's calling rotates and people respect these things because they work," he added.
Finally, the Scot also added a bit more of information about the team's IGL and communication roles, admitting that "Loira, BlaZ, and Karl (Alem4o) are calling a lot, like, a lot, which is really nice, it's like every round type of thing instead of every game type of thing."
G2 Esports' struggles may be temporarily over, but that could be because of the popular honeymoon phase. In short terms, that tends to happen to teams who make a roster change and experience a sudden dose of success; the results start coming in, but, as excitement fades away, the team gets stuck... and it's back to square one.
"I think one thing that's maybe different now, again, this is no hate towards previous teammates, but the players we have in the team right now, we're probably in the top three rosters in the world of like skilled players, we have literally five completely world class players in the team, and I know we had that before in G2 and things didn't work out so well, but now I feel like especially we have Zack and Loira, they're younger, they're really young players, they have a long career ahead of them, and when you have those young talents in the game, they have so much motivation, so much energy, so much new stuff they bring to the team."
Stompn's adaptation to G2 Esports and the EML
So far, so good. After six played matches, the samurai currently sit on third place with 14 points. Mathematically, the team has already clinched a spot to compete in the Europe and MENA League 2025 Stage 1 Playoffs – which means they are a one BO3 away from qualifying for the Esports World Cup 2025.
While G2 Esports had a bright start to the season, Stompn thought the beginning would be more of a bumpy ride.
"It has been going really good so far, honestly I thought we would start off slow, but we really started off really good, like winning, we are 5-1 right now, I thought it would be a slow start... I had to adapt to a lot, to be honest, when I first joined I could barely understand half the people on the team, because of the accent barrier I guess, but right now I am completely comfortable," the American explained.
Logically, and despite having very limited experience against professional North American teams, Stompn has already made up his mind about what region may be the strongest; at least when it comes to scrimmages. Surprisingly, that's Europe.
"From my perspective I think they are way better than the NA teams. I can only compare it to scrims, because I have never been a pro in NA, but from scrimming all of the NA pro teams, not to give them an ego boost, but I think they are better than the NA teams. The playstyles, Virtus.Pro, there's no team like them on NA, they just don't make any mistakes to be honest," he explained.
However, Stompn isn't just adapting to a new region. He's also adapting to professional Siege. After all, the American was seen playing for M80's academy lineup less than six months ago. Coming from XBOX, the mechanically-gifted teenager thought he had already mastered Rainbow Six Siege. Apparently, that wasn't the case.
"When I came from console I already thought I knew most of the game. Like, everything. I am not even kidding, I am so for real. Like, I thought I knew everything," Zack explained.
"Even in my other team when I had Merc as a coach, he also taught me so much, it's like a whole different game on PC. With this team, like, right now, Ramalho, just everyone on the team, Camera, all the players, it feels like in every game I am learning something new. Like, whether it's a new angle, a new play, a new push, or like a new plant, I have learned so much," he added.
Stompn's new life in Europe
It's fascinating to see how video games offer to some lucky souls the chance to follow their dreams. In June, an 18-year-old from Dallas was offered the opportunity to pack his bags and travel all the way to Glasgow, Scotland, just to press some keys.
While some can be fortunate, the whole esports industry isn't all roses. Unfortunately, the Rainbow Six Siege esports scene has already had a handful of cases that can back this up. It's an uncertain career which can end at any time.
With video games being just that, games, and with no studying being involved, parents will always struggle not just to understand what's going on to their kid's life but also to let go. Imagine your child tells you he wants to play video games on the other side of the planet because this group of people have offered the kid a sum of money. You would want to be very careful and have a complete understanding of the whole picture.
Although Doki wasn't given this chance when he was 18, the Scot, now in his middle 20s, gave his opinion about this opportunity.
"When I was 18 I was living with my mum. I wasn't really doing anything apart from just Siege. I wish I could move country when I was 18 and go experience a new land, because being 25 or 26 that I am now, okay, I can still do it, but I am not as inclined to do it because I am more settled in my life, like I have more stuff here, so, like, having the opportunity when you're young, you have to do these things, and I would say this to anybody who is 17, 18, in that walk of life, if you get the opportunity to go travel to another country, stay there for six months, go travel to Australia to do your university or something... just go and do it!"
"Because everything that you have here will be here when it comes back, okay, of course, accidents can happen and people can come and go, but, on a general whole, nothing is going to change so drastically that you are going to miss, you got to do these things because there will be a point in your life where you're looking back at it and you think f***, I really wish I went and I did that... and I spoke to Zack's mum and dad as well and I said the same thing to them, you know, they obviously had their concerns about their son coming to a new country when he is 18, it's a big move, I understand, but you got to do these things. That's life. You're going to regret not doing it when you're on your late 20s and late 30s. I am happy that he's getting to experience that."
Taking the decision to actually leave your home country takes courage and it's a brave move, but, at the end, the reward can be huge. Now, as Stompn has spend about a month in Scotland, the American talked about what he misses the most looking behind.
"My family, friends, my dogs... a lot. I don't think the food is bad here, I don't think is bad at all, I really don't. But I miss the food back at home for sure. And the weather a little bit."
Fortunately, Stompn is safe and sound in Scotland, although the American had a surprising welcoming situation when he first arrived to Doki's house.
"The day he (Stompn) arrived I picked him up the airport and brought him to my house and my friend was asleep on the couch, like, half naked, because we were out on a night out the night before and he was proper passed out on the couch and I was like, 'Zack, welcome to Scotland'," Doki explained.
However, Stompn's highlight of his one month stay in Scotland isn't that wild situation, fortunately.
"Going to the city, it's crazy. The first day I got here I was like, these are all castles, the buildings look like castles, and Jack was like, these are just normal buildings," Stompn said.
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