ptkovsky
Besides the previously discussed mashup between Astralis and Team Vitality rosters, the other important topic in the professional CS: GO scene to talk about is definitely the recent announcement which came in straight from one of the most respected multigaming esports organizations originating from the United States — the legendary Evil Geniuses team.
As directly stated in the official message from the Twitter account of the the EG team, their CS: GO roster changes marks the departure of three of their core players at the same time — the in-game leader Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz, then Owen “oBo” Schlatter, and also Michal “MICHU” Muller.
It is also stated that the North American esports organization is not leaving the CS scene and is planning to come back as soon as possible and set up a new CS: GO team for the 2022 competitive season on the NA scene.
Today we say goodbye and thank you to @peterjarguz, @obocsgo, and @michucs_go.
In the new year we look forward to coming back stronger and continuing to prove our dedication to NA CS:GO. pic.twitter.com/mRTYn1tWNn
— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) November 6, 2021
The remaining members who are currently still listed as the players of the EG’s roster are teams’ AWPer Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov coming from Bulgaria and also Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte, who usually occupies the lurker position.
Along with stanislaw, the former trio of EG players were signed by the American esports organization in September 2019 when the Evil Geniuses organization made an acquisition of the NRG Esports’ CS: GO roster.
Legacy
The American squad is easily considered one of the oldest and most popular CS: GO teams on the entire esports scene. The Evil Geniuses organization was formed in 1999 in Canada. The EG roster which was featuring the likes of famous Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert was active on the professional Counter-Strike scene up until January 2012.
The EG team’s CS 1.6 roster probably reached its prime during the period of 2009-2010. Then, the US squad was able to win multiple events such as the GameGune series 2009 tournament in Mexico, the IEM series event IEM IV American Championship Finals, and also finished first the MSI BEAT IT finals in Beijing, China.
In the GameGune event in September the EG team was able to effectively progress through the upper bracket of the event and started from the 2:0 win against the female squad SK Ladies.
And then the team eventually managed to outplay Keun-chul “solo” Kang’s formidable WeMade FOX squad from South Korea two times both in the upper bracket finals and the grand finals of the Spanish championship. In the result, the US team secured first place in the $34,000 Counter-Strike tournament on LAN.
At the other offline IEM IV American event in December 2009, n0thing’s team ended up first in their respective group A and then they beat with the 2:0 score Derek “dboorN” Boorn’s Complexity Gaming roster in the finals.
But probably one of the most significant results in the competitive history of the North American esports organization was achieved in September 2010 when the Evil Geniuses team first entered the group stage of the MSI BEAT IT finals.
Interestingly enough, in group stage the NA team in the Chinese LAN came second only after the Lions squad from Sweden which featured today’s Ninjas in Pyjamas head coach Bjorn “THREAT” Pers and also Heroic‘s coach Richard “Xizt” Landstrom.
The legendary Fnatic lineup was able to knock out the Lions team in the semifinals stage of the MSI tournament. But then they suddenly lost 1:2 themselves to the likes of the EG roster in the grand finals of the event.
Even prior to the official release of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive title by Valve in August 2012 EG’s CS division was shut down. The January’s disband came in after numerous rumors about the financial problems of the NA esports organization which started occurring around 2011.
Comeback
And so after remaining silent for almost eight years, the Evil Geniuses organization suddenly decided to make a comeback to the competitive Counter-Strike scene. The strong roster who were previously representing NRG Esports were transferred to the EG organization.
The Evil Geniuses team was doing pretty good in the 2019 and 2020 competitive seasons. For instance, the North American team came first in four of the biggest CS: GO tournaments.
Interestingly enough, the EG squad managed to win $100,000 prize only a few days after the announcement of the new sponsorship came in. This happened when they reached first place at the ESL One: New York 2019 event.
The ESL One series tournament started for the EG squad with a clean 2-0 run in group B with 2:0 matches over FaZe Clan and the Danish CS: GO team which happened to be Astralis. EG beat G2 Esports team in the semifinals and then stanislaw’s squad were victorious with the 3:1 score over the Danish legends in the finals of the ESL tournament.
One of the CS: GO roster’s biggest achievements was surely winning the StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 8 $500,000 offline event. The Ukrainian tournament operator was responsible for the organization of the CS: GO event which was held in October 2019 in Belek, Turkey. The championship notably happened only a month after the previous ESL event in New York.
Being among one of the invited teams, the EG squad was able to progress to the playoffs phase of the Turkish event through the lower bracket of the GSL group B. After losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas, the team was able to recover with the set of consecutive victories over the Heroic and FURIA Esports squads and then beat the same NIP team in the LB finals to qualify to the knockout stage,
The Evil Geniuses team was able to confidently move on through the upper bracket of the StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 8 playoffs phase. The EG squad beat Renegades and Fnatic twice to win the whole thing and also $250,000 prize money for the first place finish.
In April 2020, the NA team came second after losing 0:3 to their rivals Team Liquid in the finals of the online ESL Pro League Season 11: North America tournament. EG were tied with TL in the regular season phase and then the first team lost with the combined 0:5 score in two of the playoffs’ Bo3 matches.
The next event for the team was BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 American Finals which were organized in June. And the Evil Geniuses squad now won against Team Liquid with the 2:1 score in the upper bracket. But then they were weaker than Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s MIBR squad — 1:2.
The NA team defeated FURIA Esports in the lower bracket to once again meet their MIBR rivals in the finals. And now it was EG who celebrated the clean 2:0 victory over one of the best CS: GO teams from Brazil in the $250,000 BLAST Premier series championship.
One of the latest and big results for stanislaw’s squad came in during the August’s ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online — North America tournament. The team topped their respective group B over the likes of Tean Liquid and so were heading to the knockouts.
In the playoffs stage, EG defeated FURIA Esports 2:0 and went on to the final match of the tournament where they again met Team Liquid. The tense, full of back and forth games Bo5 matchup of Evil Geniuses vs Team Liquid in the grand finals of the ESL event ended with the 3:2 victory in favor of the EG team. They also earned $65,000 prize money for their efforts.
Decline
It seems that at the moment when it was announced in February 2021 that the 20-year-old Ethan “Ethan” Arnold left the active roster of the Evil Geniuses organization because he decided to make a transition to Riot Games’ Valorant title and joined the likes of the 100 Thieves organization, the EG team’s chemistry started slowly falling apart.
oBo and MICHU joined the likes of the already problematic Evil Geniuses’ roster in March and April 2021, respectively. The 18-year-old North American talent played for Complexity Gaming since 2019. And the Polish rifler had a much longer list of notable former teams which included names such as Meet Your Makers, ESC Gaming, Gamers2 which later rebranded to G2 Esports, Team Kinguin, Virtus.pro, and also Team Envy.
The EG team competed in the ESL Pro League Season 14 event in August with their head coach Damian “daps” Steele acting as a substitute player for stanislaw. Jarguz made a corresponding announcement in his Twitter account. stanislaw explained that he decided to take a break mainly due to the frustration with the team’s prolonged bootcamp in Europe and also due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the related restrictions.
One of the other wake-up calls came in for the EG fans when the team played BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2021 with two substitute players in their roster. This confusion happened because stanislaw and Brehze reportedly announced that they needed to take a break from professional Counter-Strike competitions due to their progressing mental issues.
But with both newcomers still on board and coming in hot during the next event, the Evil Geniuses team was able to finish only fifth place at the Intel Extreme Masters XVI — Fall: North America event. EG were coming to the tournament as the fourth team in the region’s Regional Major Rankings.
After the series of intense tiebreakers the squad was able to settle on the third place in the IEM’s group B. The EG team then participated in the fifth place match against group A’s third place team EXTREMUM. The Evil Geniuses team lost the Bo3 series with the 1:2 record and they were not even going up to the double digit numbers in two of the maps that they lost on.
The North American team was indeed looking not that great during the next BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2021 event which happened last month. They lost to the MAD Lions team with the 0:2 score in the first round and quickly dropped out of the tournament.
During the most recent PGL Major Stockholm 2021 tournament which was held on LAN in Sweden, the Evil Geniuses squad managed to place second to last in the New Legends stage with the disappointing 0-3 score, the result which was on par with the ENCE squad featuring the likes of experienced former NIP’s AWPer Aleksi “allu” Jalli.
With the record minus 36 rounds statistics in the Swedish event, the EG squad lost all of their matches to FaZe Clan, Copenhagen Flames and finished 1:2 against the strong Team Vitality in the stage’s third elimination match.