The most interesting org in the world, Evil Geniuses: a mid-year report by Sheen Sah
As an organization, Evil Geniuses is something like The Most Interesting Man in the World. They don’t play in a lot of tournaments, but when they do … they prefer to cash out. EG has made money at every tournament they’ve played in throughout 2017. Let’s just call them the most interesting org instead. I recall one misstep, but we’ll get into that in the second quarter.
First Quarter, 2017
Croatia was the starting point for Evil Geniuses in 2017. EG won the Dota Pit League Season 5 to take home $63,000 on January 22. A 3-2 victory over OG, who had just won the Boston Major a month beforehand, enabled EG to claim a title in the first month of the year.
After taking February off, EG returned to the public in mid March to play two show matches. Each match earned EG $4,000, as they defeated Onyx and compLexity Gaming. Perhaps Evil Geniuses just wanted to keep warm heading into DAC 2017 and the Kiev Major (both of which took place in April). When you don’t get out of bed for less than $4,000, that makes you the most interesting org in the world.
Second Quarter, 2017
April was certainly the weakest month of 2017 for EG, but that’s not to say they played poorly. However, it’s fair to say that Q2 was poor for their standards. It’s basically title or bust for these guys. The rest of the article contains Dota 2’s biggest tournaments thus far. I don’t mean to throw shade at Summit 7, but that prize pool is pretty weak compared to the others.
Evil Geniuses looked like a middle-of-the-pack team at the Dota 2 Asia Championship. They tied Team Empire in the playoff stage, but still earned $37,000 for their efforts. Apparently Invictus had a blueprint out on EG; both Invictus Gaming and iG Vitality swept Evil Geniuses in the group stage.
EG made a solid push through the lower bracket by defeating Wings Gaming in a Bo1 and sweeping Team faceless. Newbee, though, caught EG off guard and produced a reverse sweep.
Later in April the Kiev Major came around, and EG looked like a middle-of-the-pack team once again. A 2-2 group stage record (5-5 in total games) was not what the American leaders were looking for. TNC Pro Team swept EG, and iG Vitality reverse swept them. Therefore, EG placed 9th in groups. This didn’t hold them back during the Main Event, as they won two series before getting swept by the eventual tournament winners, OG.
To finish the second quarter, Evil Geniuses went to Manila for Masters and Moscow for EPICENTER. Both of these tournaments featured EG in the finals. They claimed their second title of the year in Manila, but lost to Team Liquid 3-1 in Moscow.
Grade: A
What can I say? EG has already won two titles by the middle of the year, and made three finals. If you disagree with me, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out on Twitter; I reply to everything at the moment.