Evil Geniuses current state of things & future
Topic: CS:GO Evil Geniuses
In this piece, we want to recapture the evolution of Evil Geniuses and their current roster consisting of: William "RUSH" Wierzba, Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte, Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov, Jacky "Stewie2K" Yip and Timothy "autimatic" Ta who are currently struggling to find footing amongst the worlds best teams.
The following article is built around an interview between James Banks and William "RUSH" Wierzba that took place live on Twitch.tv/blastpremier. Here's the link to the video: Blast Video. The interview part starts at 9:09:40. All the quotes included in that article are taken from the linked video!
General Introduction
Evil Geniuses (EG) is a professional Esport organization founded in Canada in 1999 and with that one of the oldest of its kind. The first Counter Strike events played under the banner of EG go back to as early as 2002. Since then the organisation has competeted in 74 S-Tier events according to Liquipedia.
After not being active in the Counter Strike devision for close to eight years Evil Geniuses came back to CS:GO in mid 2019 by signing the NRG lineup consisting of Brehze, CeRq, Ethan, tarik, stanislaw and coach ImAPet. A quite successful year 2019 with event wins at StarSeries & i-League Season 8, as well as ESL One: New York 2019 was followed by some more decent results in 2020 and roster rebuilding phase in 2021.
Sadly not everything worked out as planned and the restructuring process continued in late 2021/early 2022. MICHU, stanislaw, oBo and tarik were released, so was coach daps. In the following weeks Evil Geniuses signed Stewie2K from Liquid and autimatic as well as RUSH and coach maLeK.
Source
After not being active in the Counter Strike devision for close to eight years Evil Geniuses came back to CS:GO in mid 2019 by signing the NRG lineup consisting of Brehze, CeRq, Ethan, tarik, stanislaw and coach ImAPet. A quite successful year 2019 with event wins at StarSeries & i-League Season 8, as well as ESL One: New York 2019 was followed by some more decent results in 2020 and roster rebuilding phase in 2021.
Sadly not everything worked out as planned and the restructuring process continued in late 2021/early 2022. MICHU, stanislaw, oBo and tarik were released, so was coach daps. In the following weeks Evil Geniuses signed Stewie2K from Liquid and autimatic as well as RUSH and coach maLeK.
New Lineup - More Trophies?
The last addition to the new lineup, RUSH, got announced on the 20.01.2022 and completed a quite legendary group of players. All three newly added players are previous Major winners, while Brehze and CeRq both showed great consistency since entering Tier-1 CS:GO and are both insanely talented players.
Many fans surely were quite excited when reading about the new roster announcement of their favorite Esport organization. What might have not satisfied them are the results since then. The lineup started their journey off on the 03.02.2022 at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups and went home after a disappointing showing against Vitality and a close game against Liquid.
Just yesterday the team also went out in the follow-up event, the BLAST Spring Showdown, with a disappointing 0:2 against GODSENT. That's sadly by far not all, in the meantime, Evil Geniuses didn't manage to qualify for the PGL Major in Antwerp due to a bo3 loss against 9z in the deciding game and finished off ESL Pro League Season 15 in last place and with a score of 0:5. If you would imagine a worst-possible start for a new lineup at a legendary organization you might think about exactly that scenario. RUSH found the following words yesterday:
"It's unacceptable the way we're playing and the results we're getting, as well as not making the Major. No doubt it is really bad and it looks bad. We have to sit down as a team and organization and talk about what makes the most sense going forward." Source
Many fans surely were quite excited when reading about the new roster announcement of their favorite Esport organization. What might have not satisfied them are the results since then. The lineup started their journey off on the 03.02.2022 at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups and went home after a disappointing showing against Vitality and a close game against Liquid.
Just yesterday the team also went out in the follow-up event, the BLAST Spring Showdown, with a disappointing 0:2 against GODSENT. That's sadly by far not all, in the meantime, Evil Geniuses didn't manage to qualify for the PGL Major in Antwerp due to a bo3 loss against 9z in the deciding game and finished off ESL Pro League Season 15 in last place and with a score of 0:5. If you would imagine a worst-possible start for a new lineup at a legendary organization you might think about exactly that scenario. RUSH found the following words yesterday:
"It's unacceptable the way we're playing and the results we're getting, as well as not making the Major. No doubt it is really bad and it looks bad. We have to sit down as a team and organization and talk about what makes the most sense going forward." Source
Major
The failed Major qualification is probably one of the biggest downsides of everything that happened as it would have given the players and organization the chance to perform at one of the biggest events of the year, as well as collecting some more LAN experience and European practices together. Regarding the failed Major qualification RUSH found the following words:
"It hurts to not make the Major, but I really put everything into that. It's probably one of the biggest losses in my career and I´m still trying to get over it to this day, but as long as we're holding the hope in ourselves we can still make it happen, whether it be on this team or in our individual careers." Source
"It hurts to not make the Major, but I really put everything into that. It's probably one of the biggest losses in my career and I´m still trying to get over it to this day, but as long as we're holding the hope in ourselves we can still make it happen, whether it be on this team or in our individual careers." Source
Practicing during the Major
With the failed Major qualification another big downside comes into play. Most of the "good teams" of the region are bootcamping and playing in Europe, while Evil Geniuses didn't make the event and has to decide on how they want to handle their practice routine in the upcoming weeks.
"Playing online is only a hindrance for us, especially in NA. There are some good NA teams playing here right now but now that the Major is coming up there's going to be zero good practice here, apart from maybe 1,2,3 good teams. Going forward I think the only way we improve at a fast rate is if we go back to Europe and play there for an extended period of time." Source
"Playing online is only a hindrance for us, especially in NA. There are some good NA teams playing here right now but now that the Major is coming up there's going to be zero good practice here, apart from maybe 1,2,3 good teams. Going forward I think the only way we improve at a fast rate is if we go back to Europe and play there for an extended period of time." Source
What is the future going to look like?
Talking about the future RUSH didn't seem all too sure yet. Talks with the team and organization will follow to decide on a future plan and a way to step up the performance and gain better results.
"Whether it be continuing with this roster or changing something. Something has to change for sure, I mean look at our results. It doesn't necessarily have to be a roster change, could also be a mentality shifter." Source
"Whether it be continuing with this roster or changing something. Something has to change for sure, I mean look at our results. It doesn't necessarily have to be a roster change, could also be a mentality shifter." Source
Closing words
While the present doesn't look all too bright for Evil Geniuses, we're confident the future will. The current lineup consists of world-class players that are capable of achieving great things together. We wish them all the best for their next challenges and encourage each one of you to cheer them up on their Social Media! Some closing words from RUSH:
"Everyone in the team could be a bit more hyped in general, I agree on that, but I also think we need some more time together." Source
"Everyone in the team could be a bit more hyped in general, I agree on that, but I also think we need some more time together." Source
Special shoutout
A short special notice to the BLAST team. First of all once again the link to the video of the interview that was quoted in the article: Blast Video. They, as well as other tournament organizers, work hard daily to deliver an awesome experience to all of us and are a big part of why CS:GO is as amazing as it is. Support them on Twitter and check out their Twitch channel to catch all the action live!
Information powered by Liquipedia
