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The North American team CS:GO team Evil Geniuses is the major disappointment within the first half of the season. After the transfer window, a lot of fans expected a great EG’s return to the tier-1 scene, but it’s gotten worse. Here we’ll try to find reasons, why EG didn’t manage to qualify for the Major, and what they should do in near future to rehabilitate.
Reunion of Cloud9
Only Brehze and CeRq remained from last year’s line-up. Both players play together since October 2017. They were joined by the champion trio of Cloud9: Stewie2k, automatic, and RUSH. The first came from Team Liquid. The second missed the last season due to switching to Valorant, but he’s still good. RUSH didn’t play the second half of 2021. The belief in this line-up was. Legendary NA players who won the major. The new team, new people, automatic, and RUSH have not played CS for a long time, should be motivated. But it didn’t go as planned.
Our roster is beginning to look a little…familiar.
Welcome @RUSH! ? | #LIVEEVIL pic.twitter.com/l6ryygNVoY
— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) January 20, 2022
First tournaments
The debut of this roster was at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022. EG lost two bo1, and in bo3 against BIG, took 10th-12th place. Further, the qualifiers for the RMR event were. Sensationally, on the first attempt, EG failed to make it to RMR – they lost to Strike with a score of 14:16. In a couple of days the 2nd and last qualifier were, and fortunately for EG fans, their favorite team managed to achieve the goal.
A few weeks later, EG returned to Europe, and played group stage at ESL Pro League Season 15. It was a disaster. Evil Geniuses again finished the tournament without victories, lost all five matches. Even then, many began to doubt, that maybe the EG and major will not pass. No wonder they doubted.
William “RUSH” Wierzba
EG lost the start match against paiN but managed to win two next against 9z and 00Nation. In the next match, Team Liquid took victory over Evil Geniuses and sent them to pool 2-2. On the penultimate game day, EG were able to secure one more chance to qualify for the match, beating Party Astronauts. Last day, Stewie2k & co had to win two matches, against 9z and paiN, to qualify for the Major.
But SA team took a rematch from the EG, and robbed them of their chances at Major.
Boiling point
Timothy “autimatic” Ta
Evil Geniuses did not fulfill the main task for the first half of the season. But this is not the end, and everything could still be fixed. But not after qualifiers for IEM Dallas and BLAST Finals. Evil Geniuses returned to their home region and played two online qualifiers. But both were extremely failed. The Brazilian team GODSENT, where TACO and HEN1 are playing, within both qualifiers knocked out EG. This means that the EG, first, will not be on the nearest LAN tournaments. Secondly, they will not get the points they need to pass the IEM Cologne 2022. The result – we can see EG next time as late as August.
And thank god, because, with this roster, it is no longer possible to observe the EG. CEO Evil Geniuses as well agrees with that.
Disappointing finish in CS:GO today – I'm sorry to all the fans…we are not complacent with these results and are committed to making changes to improve!
Thanks for your continued support. ?
— EG Nicole LaPointe Jameson (@totheLaPointe) April 27, 2022
What is the reason for such unsatisfactory results? It is clear that players could not quickly find chemistry with each other, which prevented them from achieving the result. Secondly, the stagnation of some players. Yes, they can be good people, they have good results in the past, but at the moment they do not give the desired result. They need radical changes that will shake them off, and give them a big push. And thirdly, the absence of a new generation of players. We knew all of these players six-seven years. EG need a young blood, like Liquid and CoL did.
What should be changed?
Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov
In my opinion, EG needs to switch two players. Foremost, CeRq. The Bulgarian AWPer is playing here for almost five years, starting from NRG, and he should change something, in this case, a team. Candidates for replacement are wiz or cynic, if you take players from North America. Of course, Evil Geniuses can search for someone from Europe, and multiple sources told that AMANEK will join EG.
The second variant – IGL role. Now Stewie2k has an IGL role, but, at the same time, he has the worst performance in a team, be like an anchor. Like variant, EG can give IGL role to RUSH, and sign jks. Both played together in Complexity, and jks had a good tournament with FaZe Clan two months ago. But the fact that there will be changes in the team is certain. In my opinion, automatic and Brehze will stay on the team.
Unfortunately, CS:GO in North America, after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, never recovered. Teams still can’t compete against European teams, even tier-2 rank. Hopefully that after Major and IEM Dallas 2022, the situation will improve, and Evil Geniuses, among other things, will improve their game.