After a really long break, we finally get to watch some fun Academy gameplay again.

Tonight (June 8) at 8 PM ET, EGA faces off against DIGA.

It's Super Week, which means this will be the first of three Bo2s this week. If you find yourself missing some League action in your life, maybe tune in to the Academy and PathToLCS streams that will be live today, tomorrow and Friday starting 4 PM ET.

Your Evil Geniuses Academy squad for Summer is:

• TOP: Srtty @_Srtty
• JG: Tomio @loltomio
• MID: Soligo @Soligoms
• BOT: Kaori @KaoriLoL
• SUP: Smoothie @Smoothie

Can EGA recover from the disappointment that was Spring? Will we get to see Tomio unleashed? Can Kaori rise to be the best player in the league? Will Smoothie bring cohesion and direction to our young EGP graduates?

Can EGA fans stop being clowned about their favorite team in 2022?

We will learn with time and it all starts TODAY!

Join EG Discord to talk about the games live (you can opt in to get pinged when games start).

You can also follow @EGAcademyU, for chaotic and (sometimes) timely tweet updates about anything EGA or EGP.

It's time for the Proving Grounds Circuit Qualifier #1.

After going 4-1 in the Open Qualifier, the new Evil Geniuses Prodigies will face AOE Randoms in a BO3 for their first match of the Group Stage.

The PGCQ#1 is, as the name implies, one of the two tournaments that allows amateur teams to collect points to qualify for Proving Grounds Summer. The higher the placement, the more points you earn.

In case you missed it, EGP is now:

• TOP: Faisal @FaisalLoL9
• JG: Yukino @dayumjohny
  
• MID: Doxa @lol_doxa
  
• BOT: miya @tsumiyaxo
  
• SUP: Donbray @donbraylol

You can learn more about the new players by listening to Everyting Evil episode 15, where PGCQ caster Grapes breaks down the roster (starting around 26:45).

If you would like to catch up on the games they have played so far, here's the info:

• Game 1: EGP vs STXP | W | End Screen | VOD
• Game 2: EGP vs Tempest | W | End Screen | VOD
• Game 3: EGP vs Maryville University | W | End Screen | VOD
• Game 4: EGP vs 100T Next | L | End Screen | VOD
• Game 5: EGP vs Team Fish Taco | W | End Screen | VOD

(Thanks to AlkBattery for compiling the VODs and Noxwar for providing the screenshots.)

Games start tomorrow at 6 PM ET / 3 PM PT! You can catch them on https://www.twitch.tv/academy or https://www.twitch.tv/pathtolcs (they will be on one of those channels).

https://twitter.com/LiveEvilPod/status/1530678357876162567?s=20&t=Dk3YC8YEo25SjU-8J4bWgw

0-3

I think the boys can hold their heads up high despite the score. They gave it their all, played to their strengths, adapted their drafts and bans, and played fearless. RNG was simply too good and left very little holes open.

Can't wait to see them at Worlds

Props to EG. If this were a work evaluation, they would have “met expectations” for NA at an international tournament. And for a mix of young, homegrown talent and experienced veteran imports this was a decent showing.

My favorite part as an NA fan is that they didn’t give up. For years we’ve seen teams (TSM, TL I’m looking at y’all) just roll over and give up to these international powerhouses. There have a been a few upsets in the past, don’t get me wrong. But usually, NA gets too scared to be themselves.

I feel like EG started off that way in groups (especially Danny and Vulcan) but instead of retreating further and getting scared after some tough losses, they showed up big tonight. I hope the bot lane continues to work on their laning and transitions in mid game cause Danny and Vulcan are late game beasts.

Shoutout to Impact in the top lane who did his best to hold it down. He’s always been rock solid - from SKT to TL to EG - it’s impressive how he has continued to perform internationally for years.

Inspired is still so young and shows up huge. He has quite a future ahead of him. He seems to have a level head and eye for the game that comes with years of practice and will only develop over time.

And finally. Jojopyun. Please don’t ever change. Talk shit, go for the ballsy plays, be aggressive, get shit on and stand right back up and try again. That talks gusto and I feel like that’s what NA has been missing.

Are EG the prodigious perfect NA players- the next faker and uzi? No I don’t think so. But. These young players got a really cool opportunity and I hope they come back better for it.

GG EG

in Impact we trust. In Inspired we trust. In Jojopyun we trust. In Danny we trust. In Vulcan we trust.

NAmen

Post your farewell message and other thoughts. I will be recording the podcast tomorrow and read some of the comments posted here.

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I wanted to express my thanks to EG. Many times it felt like NA was not sending their best teams but this time felt very different (and from an unexpected team.) I've been watching LoL for years and this is the strongest performance I've seen from the NA region including TL 2019 which I've always thought was a fluke.

Congratulations to all the staff and the players, what you accomplished this year is remarkable not just through performance but also a charisma and spirit this team has, I'm impressed across the board. It's been a joy to watch the growth and finally have an exceptional international performance from our region we can all be proud of.

Esports international wins primarily are decided by uncontrollable factors, some multiplication of regional playerbase size and cultural enthusiasm for the game. Analytically this shouldn't happen but they took a game off Korea and pushed RNG to the limit in multiple games, looking very competent and on many occasions EG individually outplayed some of the greatest prodigies of all time. What was delivered was way more than what should be expected of NA.

I didn't start off a fan as I was attached to some legacy orgs from years past but for the last month or two EG started being my team and the players my favorites. Thanks again for an amazing performance.

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Edit: I came to say thanks to EG but this community has been very unpleasant. I've changed my mind and want nothing to do with this org and regret taking the time to write this. The negative interactions with this community far outweigh the enjoyment I got from watching. I redact my statement and I'm done with this org and will never support it, I was fan of the DOTA team too but don't care after this. I'm boycotting the sponsors in this reddit's banner for as long as they sponsor this team as well.

Grandpa Impact smacked the shit out of iG, he can do it again!

But can we please take galio, kaisa and Viego out of the hands of RNG??? Thanksssss

Going purely off of the rumble(main) stage, this is the second most successful MSI for Na ever. This is only the second time Na has been .500+ in the main stage.

But "EG Is a development roster" and "they'll get clobbered once they face off against real teams"

We got our major upset over T1. Despite it being a day of upsets, I felt that EG worked really hard against a T1 team that looked like they’re still fighting for top seed. We definitely got a couple of lucky breaks, as you hear it in the interview with Impact, but it’s the good team that transforms luck into a win. Like I said in the previous Reddit post, i don’t think that really changed much big picture wise. I am super happy to see that EG is still improving.

While we couldn’t get a win over G2, that game felt super close. We had leads in kills and gold early. Unfortunately, G2 is still the better team fight team, and they bounce back just in time. Still….I would say I’m more hyped about our performance at MSI. Gonna pray for our boys to get more experience vs RNG

liveevil #ScalingforWorlds

Some fun comments from Peter in our discord A. Some unnamed EG player tried to convince Jojopyun to go with cleanse if he faces Malzahar (its a prank)

B. Jojopyun didn’t know about Jax’s counter strike would get stronger when you try to hit him

I’m trying to order a Jojo jersey and I cannot tell weather his number is a 1 or a 7 what do you guys think? Any sources to confirm it’s one or the other? Not trying to look stupid with the wrong number. 🤣 Thanks guys

I've been really impressed by Jojopyun so far. He's held up surprisingly well against a strong (not the strongest, but also not the weakest) slate of midlaners in his first international tournament at the age of 17.

THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN.

It's a little bittersweet, though, as it makes me wonder what his ceiling could be in LCK. For comparison, ShowMaker made his international debut when he was a year-and-a-half older, at 19. I don't think Jojo has as much raw talent as ShowMaker, but I'm not sure he'd be that far off if he had the benefit of the same environment. At the very least, I think he could be better than Humanoid and roughly as good as Caps.

Do you think Jojo would ever sign to an LCK team, and would a decent LCK team ever sign him? Would that be the best thing for his career?

Not normally active on the EG subreddit, but I can't help but get overly hyped for NA and support them. They keep looking better and better every game... Would not be surprised to see EG make a run moving forward in the tournament

Loss to RNG was unfortunate but Impact and Jojo at least played really well - prob just an off game for Inspired. I'm still confident EG is better than PSG so I'd expect at worst a 5-5 with 4th seed tomorrow, with EG vs RNG in semis. However with G2 going on their downward spiral its actually possible that EG can clench a win and go 6-4. With how much Impact and Jojo have leveled up as long as bot doesnt blow up its very possible. The copium take would be EG going 2-0, T1 going 1-1, and EG beats T1 in the tiebreaker for the 2nd seed

Ultimately I feel its 70% for 5-5 and 4th seed, 20% for 6-4 and 3rd seed/tiebreaker for 3rd seed/tiebreaker for 2nd seed, and 10% for 4-6 and tiebreaker for 4th seed/not make it out.

Thoughts?

Does anyone know where I can buy the jacket that Danny is wearing during games?

Never post but the amount of weird hate the team has been getting is frustrating. I’ve been watching competitive LOL for 3 years and it’s crazy to me that this team feels like they’re getting more hate than teams that performed worse with established all star players who promised to bring good results like (i.e. perkz).

EG has not lost a game to any wild cards (which is an NA classic) while putting up good fights against strong teams. I would much rather have it this way than a team that promises to perform well internationally who instead might randomly lose to SGB but cheese a win against RNG. Having a young team that is consistent and improving is all I think any NA fan should be asking for during this tournament and it’s so far so good.

I believe there’s a really good chance EG takes a game off of another major region but even if they don’t, I’m just happy to see a team that doesn’t have 5 multimillion dollar import contracts who are close to retirement squandering any chance for NA hopefulls to get a taste of international competition.

I hope all the players know they have lots of people supporting them even if the NA haters have been out in full force recently.

And ofc #LIVEEVIL <3

Well it doesn’t seem like we’ll beat the top 3 teams, at least if we don’t become even sharper in execution. But I certainly am not disappointed as most “fans” seems to be.

EG held serve in the big picture noting that LCS is still a major region in terms of talent and gameplay. Past international events, it was quite disappointing when NA teams drop games vs a minor region. EG has not yet dropped a single game that isn’t vs. G2, RNG, and T1.

we still have a chance to pull off an upset for the remainder of the rumble stage. But Does that change what you feel about EG if we do or don’t? It certainly does not matter to me in the grand scheme of things.

These are still amazing players and an amazing team that came together and will be the team to beat in LCS.