EvilGeniusesOnline

Entering the Dota 2 Scene

In October 2011, following The International 2011, Evil Geniuses announced their new Dota 2 division including the return of two former DotA players, Jimmy “DeMoN” Ho and Clinton “Fear” Loomis. The first roster consisted of Amel “PlaymatE” Barudzija, Jimmy “DeMoN” Ho, Rasmus “MiSeRy” Berth Filipsen, Clinton “Fear” Loomis and Per-Anders “Pajkatt” Olsson Lille.^[1] The team’s first activity was travelling to China to bootcamp for the tournaments they’d participate in during their stay. Unfortunately, due to circumstances regarding renewing his visa, PlaymatE had to depart early due to visa issues and was temporarily replaced by the Chinese player Luo before SMM 2011. The team participated in three of the biggest Asian tournaments. They managed to get to the Quarter Finals in the second edition of the World DotA Championship and then proceeded to play SMM 2011. Evil Geniuses, having picked a unique strategy, was able to gain a convincing lead against MiTH.Trust in the Winner Bracket of the tournament when a player of the MiTH squad crashed. They were forced to remake the entire match due to a questionable ruling which states that the system which determines who was leading in the case of a crash is only applicable after a certain amount of game time has passed. Because of this and other problems regarding the organization of the tournament the team decided to boycott the tournament and went on to their last tournament, G-League Season 3, in which they failed to make it past the group stage. After the players returned home and a subsequent brief break, they shifted their focus fully to Dota 2, quickly reaching the highest levels of competition.

2012 and 2013

Pajkatt decided to leave the team to play with his countrymen in Loda‘s new team eXperience Gaming, starting in January 2012,and on the 22nd of February 2012 it was officially announced that he was to be replaced by Dominik “Lacoste” Stipic as well as new captain Jacob “Maelk “Toft-Andersen, two former Meet Your Makers teammates of DeMoN, MiSeRy and PlaymatE. DeMoN is announced to be the official backup player. Even though having a six man roster the team struggled to field a full lineup at times and consistently used stand-ins, especially the two It’s Gosu eSports players BuLba and Universe who were announced to replace MiSeRy, who wanted to practice more seriously and often than the rest of the team and thus following his former teammate Pajkatt to join CLG, Lacoste and PlaymatE on the 8th of May 2012 resulting in making Evil Geniuses a primarily American based team. Despite never leaving the higher tier of competitive Dota 2 one could see the team struggle in mid-2012 due to their danish captain Maelk rarely being available because of various vacations and other commitments. On the 12th September of 2012 rumours started that BuLba and UNiVeRsE left the team due to personal problems with some of the other team members. In the same source, it was said that Jeyo from compLexity was to join to fill in one of the missing spots, but this was refuted by compLexity’s CEO. Nonetheless, Jeyo had been standing in for EG under the alias ‘007’. Bdiz was playing as their fifth stand in. Both players were officially announced as part of Evil Geniuses on October 19, 2012.

In May 2013, Evil Geniuses announced that the team captain Maelk became the new team coach and Dutch player SexyBamboe joined the team. The team also moved in to the new team house in Phoenix, Arizona, to start their training for The International 3, five months away. But after a lackluster tournament in August, changes were made to the team on September 19th, with former Dignitas players Fogged as well as UNiVeRsE joining the team. This also meant the departure of DeMoN, who had been part of the team since its Dota 2 beginnings in 2011, Bdiz and SexyBamboe.

S A D B O Y S

After five months with the renewed roster, the team seemed to have fallen apart over the holidays, and in late January 2014 team captain Fearand off-laner UNiVeRsE was seen to stand-in for an up-and-coming team S A D B O Y S together with former HoN pros ppd and zai as well as up-and-coming Canadian player Arteezy. When Fogged was later seen to play for Team Dog the rumors that the rest of the S A D B O Y S roster was joining Evil Geniuses were already all but confirmed. With an impressive 16-2 game record with Fear and UNiVeRsE as stand-ins, Arteezy, ppd and zai were finally picked up by the Evil Geniuses organization on February 21st 2014.

After several weeks of inactivity due to a wrist injury, Fear decided to go inactive temporarily, pulling himself out of several prominent tournaments (Including The Summit and The International 4), though he stayed in the scene by commentating and coaching EG to a first place victory at The Summit and a third place finish at The International 4. To fill the empty spot EG named long-time standin mason as their fifth player as Fear’s replacement. Shortly after TI4, the team held a private meeting where it was decided that mason would be removed from the team, despite the team’s successful run, which included the best TI result of a North American team to date, with him. On August 22nd, Evil Geniuses announced that Fear would return to active play.

The original S A D B O Y S roster restored, the team went on to dominate international LANs in the second half of 2014. A second place finish at ESL One New York behind Vici Gaming, a top four finish at Dota Pit, and three first place finishes at WESC 2014, StarLadder, and DreamLeaguewould conclude Evil Geniuses’s most successful year. However, the year would have a shocking conclusion.

Team Secret Rivalry: DAC and TI5

In January 2015, Arteezy and zai abruptly departed the team to join Team Secret, citing friction between Arteezy and captain ppd. This roster change could not have had a poorer timing, as the largest LAN event outside of the International was scheduled be held in February 2015: the Dota 2 Asia Championships (DAC), with a prize pool of over $3,000,000 USD. Luckily, Aui_2000 had just been released from Cloud9 and together with the young pubstar Suma1L Evil Geniuses was able to put together a full roster in time to prepare for DAC. Suma1L, days before his 16th birthday, showed an explosive performance at DAC, sweeping Team Secret and his predecessor Arteezy in the Lower Bracket Finals and finally sweeping Vici Gaming (after dropping to them in the Upper Bracket Finals) 3-0 in the Grand Finals, on the back of Suma1L’s Storm Spirit.

In the run up to The International 2015, Team Secret would take their revenge on Evil Geniuses, besting them in the Grand Finals for both The Summit and ESL One Frankfurt. Despite winning the next largest tournament of the year, DAC, Evil Geniuses did not go into TI5 as favorites, that distinction was given to Team Secret. Placed in different groups, both teams easily qualified for the Upper Bracket of the main event, where they would have met in the second round if both teams won their first match. The much anticipated match-up would never happen, and EG would go on to face EHOME in the second round instead. Evil Geniuses repeated their run from DAC, losing to CDEC Gaming in the Upper Bracket Finals, going on to sweep LGD Gaming in the Lower Bracket Finals and finally taking their revenge on CDEC in the Grand Finals, beating them 3-1^[16], once again with Suma1L playing his signature Storm Spirit. However, the defining moment of the tournament would be the so-called “6 Million Dollar Echo Slam”: CDEC, having killed Suma1L’s Storm Spirit moved to Roshan’s Pit to claim the Aegis but were stopped short by UNiVeRsE and ppd and their Echo Slam–Ice Blast combination.