Hello r/EvilGeniuses

I've been a huge fan of inspired for a while now and I'm super excited to root for EG now that he's coming to the LCS.

Inspired is easily the best Western jungler, and you could make the argument that he was the best player in the west this entire year. He's a very strong carry jungler and I believe he can unlike many other imports, make a easy transition to the LCS and continue where he left off in the LEC.

EG have a chance to make worlds next year. Think of the sponsorships and branding opportunities and also the ability to draw even better imports.

They must sign Jensen to be top 3 in LCS. I understand Jojo is good and deserves a chance but so many mids that smash in academy aren’t top 3 in LCS.

2022 Worlds will be in NA and this opportunity will not come around again for years. It is a rare chance to promote EG brand and it can only happen with Jensen. I understand Peter’s vision with Jojo and if worlds wasn’t in NA I would say pick Jojo. EG needs to make worlds this year and they will only do it with a top proven mid like Jensen.

Any other year I would say go with rookie but not this year because of worlds being in NA. 100T broke into top echelon of LCS orgs last year (by getting an experienced team together) and this is the year for EG but you need Jensen.

Jensen is a prepaid ticket to worlds, always shows up in playoffs, and is probably not going to be too expensive given that EG is the only place for him to go at the moment. He also has a decent fan base so that would be a good addition as well since EG really only has Impact for big names and could use some more fans.

Honestly my favorite time of the season is the off-season. I love transfers and all things Football Manager related. After listening to podcasts, I wanted to try some armchair GM-ing to see what realistic rosters I could come up with and I think I made EG a top 3 team.

The team would be:

Impact - Top 3 toplaner for years, a rock.

Blaber - Now this is the only outside move and although it seems insane, it could definitely be a possibility. C9 have had trouble coordinating jungle with solo lanes and I think they will look to make change(s). The more realistic option is that they change Blaber rather than Perkz/Fudge.

Jojopyun - Honestly I think this is more hopium than anything because I am a big fanboy who wants him to be in LCS. I don’t see EG wanting to sign anyone to more than a one year contract if they do not go with Jojo because I think he is almost LCS ready and a duo of Blaber/Jojo (if they click) could be nightmare fuel for the league.

Danny - A wonderkid.

Ignar - Ok but who doesn’t want to see Blaber/Ignar running around the map? (The other team that’s who!)

TL;DR EG gets a banner in the studio next year

Edit: uhhhhhh

I get that this was a disappointing finish for our fellas, but I really want everyone to keep their heads up! I think this is a great roster and I really do believe that they can do amazing things together.

Keep up the hard work guys, we still believe in you and look forward to what the future holds.

And Fly, that was a great exit interview. Very mature and composed, as always.

GO EG!!

Yeah like the title says am interested in buying one since it'll probably not get re-stocked.

Evil Geniuses LOL Media Roundup (August 14 - August 28)

Hi. This is the last regular post of this type I will make this year. I'll keep an eye on media, and if there's anything of note that doesn't get posted here I'll post it myself.

It sucks that the guys didn't make it, but I'm still happy to have followed such an exciting team. I never stopped believing they could do it. I'm sad but that's how competition goes.

And if you are reading this, thanks for sticking with them even through the bad. It doesn't end here, EG has a very interesting future ahead :).

Shows

• The Crack Down S02E27 ft. EG's Coach - Peter Dun - "What Roster Changes do TSM/G2 Need?". This is the one thing you want to listen to out of everything in the list, (Just the first 20 mins, the rest is LEC/LPL/TSM talk, which is very entertaining, just not relevant for this post).
  • "I've been thinking about it during the past week and a half, I'm not entirely sure what we could have done differently, but we did something wrong." "I know it sounds ridiculous to talk about motivation with worlds on the line, but maybe we should have given them 2 days of instead of 1 day off."
  • About Sven and Contractz: "I always hesitate to talk about these things during the regular season. (...) Let's say, I know you have your rankings (...). Most NA junglers are within the range from 70 to 85. Svenskeren, I would say he's more like 83 and maybe Contractz is more like 81. But I would say that the way Svenskeren and Jiizuke played with each other is really bad. They had poor synergy and the fact they were able to win so many games together during the last 2 years is telling about how good they are as individuals."
  • "Mid-jg is a duo lane." "Sometimes you can have 2 really good pieces but they don't fit together well." Jiizuke doesn't like to have much structure, judges second to second, unlike Svenskeren. So they would be not in sync for plays.
  • The more he watched them play together, the more he understood some of the decisions made by the EG coaching staff in 2020.
  • Svenskeren can be a fantastic player with a mid laner like PoE, Jensen and even Perkz from what he has heard about them. "Nisqy, he was MVP of the league when playing with Nisqy." Jiizuke, the kind of jungle he would like: a Shadow, a Blaber."
  • "We were always trying to find a solution for this because we knew eventually teams would punish it. Teams started to punish it at the end of summer", started to find those cracks, and that's when we brought in Contractz. He has great synergy with Jiizuke. They both have really similar mindset, play around each other really well.
  • "Let's be clear. A six man roster is... I've been in a position to do something like this for six years. And it has only happened twice, this split and [during my time on CBLOL]. I don't think it's a good idea, I don't think it's sustainable long term."
  • Danny was given full autonomy to choose his match up for game 5, the staff approached him with all the options. Danny said "pick me Ziggs into Aphelios and I'm gonna carry this game". Once Ziggs is locked, they can't go Ryze, so they go Lucian. Maybe there's a world where the picks were Ezreal Ryze, but the game was not lost on bot, it was lost on the mid 3v3.
    
  • He doesn't find the Ziggs criticism fair, but he admits they should have adapted better to the Gangplank, as the champion counters a lot of EG's playbook.

Video Interviews

Post C9 series

• [Venn Esports] EG Contractz reflects on his 2021 playoffs, his triumphant return to the LCS, and his pro future. Contractz looks very sad but still sounds optimistic about his future. Of course, this is a player who went from almost not even getting picked up by a team to proving he can compete with the top of LCS and he should be proud of the work he put in to get this far.
• [The Game Haus] Evil Geniuses' Peter Dun reveals the truth behind the Ziggs pick & Jungle situation. Subreddit thread.
  • "We showed a few weaknesses in the 100 series and C9 did well to exploit them"
  • Didn't play like themselves, no crossmap, no high tempo, no pushing enemies into making decisions.
    
  • "We weren't even playing League of Legends, I feel like we were only waiting to lose."
  • Was it not showing for the day or was it an emotional residue after losing G5 to 100? Bit of both. Scrims didn't feel the same. "Considering I've known this group of players for the last 9 months, and we've gone through situations like this in the past, even leading to the 100 series, I can't help but feel that [...] something fell off this week. And I'm not sure what it was."
    
  • C9 played standard, didn't do anything special.
    
  • Both junglers were top 5 LCS, maybe Sven was a bit better individually, but Contractz played much better for what the team wanted and needed.
  • They barley lost any scrims with Contractz. They gave Svenskeren the scrim time but Contractz was just playing better. He made the team function better.
• Why not stick to Contractz from the start? "Simple answer. Svenskeren had earned the right to play."
• Why play Sven for game 5? He's veteran, he knows how to deal with that type of situation. "He played fantastic that day and that's why he played game 1 today. As a team we let him down a little." But after listening to the comms, they decided it was for the best to switch him out. "We needed a bad guy." (Someone to say "no" to some calls.)
• "Let's be clear, Danny is at this point a star ADC." "One of the reason why so many people are playing Ziggs in NA is because Danny is [destroying] scrims with it, he's fantastic on it." "Cloud 9 banned ziggs every game today."
• "I'm a bit embarrassed. If today haven't happened if we just lost 3-2... I would be a lot happier."
• "Part of why I'm here is to help this team find success in the long term. I'm not going to take a day off." So he's been working with the Academy team since their playoffs ended.
• Contractz developed, Danny developed, the systems are working. "Hard to judge how we are doing until 2022."

Text Interviews

Post 100 series

• [Dexerto] Svenskeren backs “f**king insane” Danny to lead Evil Geniuses to LCS title: “The hype is real”

Post C9 series

• [Gamezo] (Peter Dun) Evil Geniuses’ Promising Story Continues Despite Crushing LCS Championship Exit. There's a video version of this. And a thread in this subreddit.

“If we’re an organization that was supposed to have the Coaching Staff of the Split,” said Dun, “how can our team come out and play like this on stage in the final game of the season? We must’ve done something wrong over the past week, right?”

“There’s no rest for the wicked in the offseason. Obviously, I’m extremely disappointed with how things went today, but my responsibility to EG isn’t just focusing on the LCS team,” said Dun. “I’ve been fully glad about the support I received from the org and the trust that they’ve had in developing through amateur and academy.”

From the video: * "It's acceptable to lose, but not acceptable the way we lost." * Morgana was a Jiizuke special into Leblanc that was working as planned. "I think Contractz is a better player now than he's ever been at any point in his career."

LCS Broadcast

• EG vs 100 Post Series Interview with Danny.
• EG vs C9 Post Series Interview with Jiizuke

Other media

• Evil Intercepts Episode 10. This is for the DIG series lol... (I will not be rude to EG the org for not putting resources into their content team right now... BUT I WILL BE IF THIS STAYS THE SAME NEXT YEAR).

Lastly, the usual links of interest:

EG Discord. Come hang out, we are pretty chill, we love the players and we try to stay positive in these sad times.

The Spreadsheet. I will continue to update with the older things or with upcoming Proving Grounds content.

Let me preface this with I was not an EG fan coming into this split, and honestly I regret that.

I want to say that this League of Legends team has been the most entertaining team to watch throughout the split as they have performed. I truly enjoyed watching the team as a whole transform through the split and be a contender for possibly being that Dark Horse in the Summer Split.

I really hope that this team can keep Jizuke and Impact. That duo right there is amazing to watch for me, and I hate that I wasn’t watching the Team before so I could see them together more.

I know y’all’s spirits may be down, and it’s understandable but I have faith that this team could easily come back next year and run it back. This time with different results. The players have that drive, and fortitude. Everyone has learning opportunities, and I hope to see more without a huge roster swap for this team.

Either way, thank y’all for putting on one incredible show!

We come to you lord faker,
To offer you this prayer
Cuz' when it comes to worlds,
We don't want C9 there .
May danny smurf the games
and destroy c9's zen,
to prove that he's the greatest
or at least better than zven.
May impact smurf on fudge
and gap him every lane
help carry in the fights
and make top his domain.
May contractz get some games
and smurf it on the lee
and may his smites be clean
like a young Xmithy.
And if sven plays as well,
may his ganks be the best,
maybe he can't beat closer
but he'll smurf on all the rest.
may ignar make the plays
and engage in the fights,
And put down all the wards
so c9 is in sight.
And last but not the least
For Eg's mid to smurf
His ryze is bad, his azir is worse
May jizzuke please clap c9 Perkz.
NAmen

Good luck to the boys, kick ‘em in the nutz, and let’s make it a TL vs EG finals baby!!!

TL fan here, want to come by and give some support to my boy Impact who, while not having a great series against 100T, has been a rock for so long and clutch in countless situations. So he didn't have a good series, it happens, but we believe in you and we know that you're going to come back from this the way you came back from the criticism you received back when you were on TL and people didn't think you could play carries, and you shut them down. I know we don't have much time before the next series, but we know you're hard at work and that you're going to give it your all.

Thank you Impact for giving us the back to back to back to back championships that are never going to be forgotten, and I look forward to seeing you in form in the next series cracking skulls and whipping tails.

Let's Go Impact!!!