Evil Geniuses is a relatively young, recently formed team compared to
many of their competitors at The International 4, but don't let their
youth fool you; the boys in blue have recently taken the Dota 2 scene by
storm, smashing even the strongest competitors in record time. With
players individually talented that put the "genius" in EG, North America
finally has a champion that can truly represent them in The
International 4.
Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other. ” - Dennis Diderot
Evil Geniuses is one of the most well known names in professional
gaming history. With superstar names like Maelk, Demon, and Fear playing
for the team at one point of time or another, it may come as a surprise
that until recently the Geniuses were yet to win a single championship
match. Some have attributed this to the EG "curse", where the team was
notorious for building up a large gold and experience lead only to throw
it all away and lose. After a disappointing show in the western
qualifiers for The International 3, Evil Geniuses decided to change up
their roster multiple times with the acquisition of players like Fogged
and UNiVeRsE. Nevertheless, continued poor performance led to a period
of inactivity late 2013.
"It's not what you say but what you do that defines you." - Saahil "Universe" Arora
Several months later, Fear and UNiVeRsE were spotted playing on a
team identified as "S A D B O Y S" with new teammates Zai, PPD, and
Arteezy. They immediately found success in the form of winning the ESP
Shock Therapy Cup against Team Empire and accumulated a score of 16-2
before being officially dubbed the new Evil Geniuses.
It was only a matter of time before they proved themselves to be the
strongest American team in the world. With the acquisition of Artour
"Arteezy" Babaev and two former HoN players Peter "PPD" Dager and Ludwig
"Zai" Wahlberg, the team has undergone a frightening transformation.
“Don't
let haters talk you down, be yourself, if you think certain playstyle
is good, play it, if you think certain item build is good, try it.” - Artour "Arteezy" Babaev
In just a few short months, they won several tournaments including
the Monster Invitational LAN event where they defeated high caliber
teams like Cloud9 and Team Liquid. Peter "PPD" Dager, the captain of EG
proved himself to be one of the most intelligent and talented drafters
in the Dota 2 scene.
“I’m
not looking to fill Fear’s shoes. I’m me. He’s him. I’m going to just
be myself, play the way I play, and whatever comes of that … well, it is
what it is. It doesn’t weigh on me at all. If people want to try to
shoulder that on me for some reason, that’s their agenda, not mine.” - Mason"Mason" Venne
A big hit came to EG in March when carry player Fear was diagnosed
with mouse elbow, making him unable to attend EG's games. To fill the
roster, Mason "Mason" Venne took over Fear's duties and despite many
fans proclaiming him a worthy successor, Mason repeatedly stated that he
does not wish to play full time competitively.
It wasn't until early June when Fear announced that he would be out
for the rest of the season that Mason stepped up to the plate to join
them as an official player. EG's most recent test was the Starladder IX
LAN finals, where they achieved a respectable third place with Jacky
"EternalEnvy" Mao standing in for Fear.
 |
| Evil Geniuses after winning the Monster Invitational 2014 tournament against Cloud9. | |
Statistics speaks volumes about how scary EG actually are. During
their S A D B O Y S days, they maintained an incredible win rate of 88%
at 16-2 in matches. Since taking on the EG banner, they have gone up to
63-2-78 or 81% win-rate. Mason himself has the highest win rate out of
all Dota 2 professional players at 79%. Arteezy, on the other hand, has
one of the highest average GPM in the world, sitting at 556. Nobody can
argue that EG's preferred dual and tri-core line-up with Mason playing
either a strong mid game or hard late game carry is producing results.
Besides taking third place at SL9, EG has won MLG TKO, Joindota
League Season 1 America, the Monster Invitational. They also placed
second in the Netolic Pro League.
Taking a look at the graph above, it is evident that EG as a team has
moved forward in a positive direction post February when they reformed.
Prior to changing players, their performance was poor with less than a
50% win rate. In three months, their win ratio has skyrocketed to 77%.
Drafting-wise, EG approaches most of their games with a particular
strategy that can have several variations centered around different core
heroes. The lineup is designed for the two carries to gather as much
farm as they can while defensive supports like Dazzle, Shadow Demon, and
Treant Protector roam to make sure Arteezy and Mason are safe. EG is
also flexible enough to utilize dual lane strategies that usually use
Treant Protector to maintain control over other lanes or roaming gank
supports that look for kills all over the map. Despite flashy plays from
Arteezy on powerful mid laners, UNiVeRsE is the backbone of team fights
especially when playing heroes with clutch, momentum-shifting heroes
like Batrider and Dark Seer.
In patch 6.80, EG utilized supports like Crystal Maiden and Visage,
but in patch 6.81 their most picked heroes were Batrider, Mirana, and
Dark Seer. UNiVeRsE is known as one of the best Dark Seer players in the
world, and Mirana is a stable safe lane carry for EG that rarely fails
to get farm and maintain a mid game presence. Other heroes include Io,
Treant Protector, Morphling, and Lycan. Even though many teams call the
EG strat easy to predict, EG has ironically proven themselves to be
incredibly flexible and uses one of the largest hero pools in the Dota 2
scene.
Due to their immense success, many teams in the North American
qualifiers found themselves imitating EG drafts to an extent. Some of
their most banned heroes in 6.80 were Batrider, Visage, Clockwerk, and
Ember Spirit, while in 6.81 they prefer baning out heroes like Lycan,
Treant Protector, and Sand King with runner ups Io, Dark Seer, and
Batrider. EG tends to heavily prioritize the Batrider pick and have
given it a 100% pick/ban rate in their past 38 games, while Mirana has
an 87% pick/ban rate.
NOTABLE GAMES
Trivia:
-Zai is one of the youngest Dota 2 players participating in The International 4 at the age of 16.
-Universe
is also known as "Saahil O'Neal" because of his epic dunks, and his
waifu is Misaki from Kaichou wa Maid-sama. Mason's is -Haruhi Suzumiya.
-Although Arteezy has never played Heroes of Newerth, both PPD and Zai started their professional MOBA career in HoN.
-Before becoming EG, they played under the name S A D B O Y S as an alternate tag. The idea was pitched by Arteezy.
Head over to the Gosuwiki for more information on Evil Geniuses and The International.
Photo sources: StarLadder (player photos), Monster Energy (team photo)
Posted by Allen "snarkbearkai" Moseley - GosuGamers.net
Post TI3
- Monster Energy Invit.
- Netolic Pro League
- SLTV Starladder 9
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