Evil Geniuses Punch Their Ticket To The Odense, Denmark Finals In Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Evil Geniuses Punch Their Ticket To The Odense, Denmark Finals In Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Credit: ESL Archives via YouTube

Hot off their victory in the ESL One New York 2019 Finals, where the Evil Geniuses managed to upset the heavily favored Astralis to claim 1st place, Evil Geniuses have conquered Group B, consisting of Cloud9, Complexity, and eUnited.  With their matches against eUnited and Complexity going the distance in the common best of 3 format that ESL defaults to for divisional play, their match against Cloud9 was impeccably played, shutting the series early with 2-0.

This sudden apparent dominance by Evil Geniuses has surprised the e-sport world of Counter Strike: Global Offensive, rejoining the game from an absence that began in January of 2012.  Signing the entirety of the NRG roster on September 26, 2019, they won their first event that they entered as a team, upsetting fan favorites such as Astralis, Liquid, FaZe Clan, and ENCE, that were all on their own hot streaks from tourneys and matches prior to ESL One New York.

Evil Geniuses sudden rise into competitive Counter Strike: Global Offensive has many looking closely at their match statistics, attempting to find the weakness in the primarily American team.

Their first match of Group B, against eUnited was a constant battle in Vertigo (6-16 eUnited), Inferno (16-12 Evil Geniuses), and Dust2 (16-9 Evil Geniuses).  The top fragger of the series was Brehze, with 64 kills and an average damage per round (ADR) of 84.8, in direct comparison to eUnited’s top fragger MarkE, with 58 kills and an ADR of 88.8.  Ethan managed a higher series ADR with 89.8 per round, with Cooper taking the most assists with 14.

eUnited’s map pick of Vertigo, a newly added map to the pool for this series, bode well for eUnited initially, with a one-sided spree led against ;Evil Geniuses.  Yet what appeared to be a one-sided match against the ESL One reigning champs turned into a blow-by-blow fight where both teams continued to struggle to gain the upper hand, and Evil Geniuses only gaining the upper hand in the final map.

Their second match, against Complexity, was another close series played in Mirage (16-7 Evil Geniuses), Nuke (10-16 Complexity), and Dust2 (16-11 Evil Geniuses).  The top fragger of the series for Evil Geniuses was Brehze with 70 kills, who also managed to net the highest ADR at 90.4 for the series; Complexity’s top fragger was RUSH, with 53 kills and a 75.2 ADR.

Evil Geniuses won their map pick of Mirage cleanly, while Complexity eked out the advantage in Nuke by maintaining a healthy economy through their round losses.  Again, Dust2 played to the advantage of Evil Geniuses, with ShahZaM compiling 12 AWP kills through double doors.  ShahZaM’s AWP usage directly countered RUSH, who racked up an impressive 23 kills on the map and seemed to only respond negatively to ShahZaM’s impeccable sightlines.

Of these two series, a clear pattern emerges statistically.  Brezhe typically plays a rifle, following behind entry-fraggers stanislaw or Cooper.

Evil Geniuses final match against Cloud9 tells a different story, and one that has brought them the clearest victory.  Evil Geniuses won both their map pick of Inferno (16-10 Evil Geniuses) and Cloud9’s pick of Train (16-13 Evil Geniuses).  The top fragger of the series was stanislaw, with 47 kills and 90 ADR.  CeRq had an impressive bout with the AWP, racking up 26 kills across both maps.  Brehze, the expected top fragger, played the worst yet in all 3 series, with a match rating of 1.06.

Cloud9 found themselves unable to stop stanislaw from constantly getting the first kill in the round, resulting in 32 first kills going to Evil Geniuses across the entire series.  It appears Cloud9 were so busy crowding and hunting Brehze that it allowed his teammates to clean up as necessary, across both hard-fought maps.

Evil Geniuses ability to clutch lost fights, and the individual ability of the players, makes them a serious threat as we move ever closer to the next finals in Odense, Denmark.  It’s anybody’s guess as to whom else they may meet there.

Group C begins tonight on ESL’s Twitch Channel.

MORE ABOUT