Evil Geniuses’ re-entry into professionalCounter Strike Global Offensive in 2019 was one of the most celebrated news stories in the community. Following up with clutch wins in 2020 bode well for the team to rise back to its former status. However, recently the roster’s performance has been quite lackluster, to put it in the easiest way possible.
The North American CS: GO scene as a whole seems to be in a constant decline in viewership, while players are leaving for other FPS titles like Valorant. The Canadian based organization plans to solve both these issues with what they are calling “The Blueprint.”
This was the announcement for the project via Twitter:
“Let’s try something different, shall we? #CSGOESEVIL
@autimaticTV @Brehze @cerq @RUSH @Stewie @ChopCS @clasiaLp @HexTCSGO @walco_tv @wiz_cs @ben1337cs @djaycs
@JonjiJlc @therealpwnalone @viz_cs
#LiveEvil”
Evil Geniuses signed both Carpe Diem and Party Astronauts which are “academy” CS GO teams who have competed at the B-tier of several major league events. The total number of players in the Counter Strike section of EG now amounts to a total of 15.
The reason stated for why they signed so many professional players is that the company aims to create a “fluid” 15-man roster by the start of next year. EG’s management has listed several reasons behind their decision, but in summary, this is done to decrease the fatigue of players and ensure that they always put their best gameplay forward at all events needed.
The overall “main” team with Stewie2K, will continue competing at the top-tier level events, with the new teams representing EG in other minor competitions.
All the assigned teams will practice together, while young players from the newly-signed sides will stand to join the main roster whenever its members are not performing at their true peak potential.
The tournament cycle in CS GO is famously eternal, so the true idea here is that the organization can prioritize important events over others by selectively choosing to send different team compositions and also having two or three sides to compete in the same tournament. The newcomers will also be hosted at the org’s headquarters in Seattle to manage another goal of the “Blueprint” plan,which is to provide a better practice environment for all players.
The Director of Gaming Excellence at EG, said this via social media:
“With the practice environment in North America not being on par, we basically take the infrastructure in-house and invest a lot of resources to make sure our practice allows us to catch up with the European counterparts.”
This setup is not entirely new for Evil Geniuses, as a similar plan has worked quite well with their League of Legends roster, with two academy players promoted to the main team pretty fast, which went on to win the LCS season in NA. With IEM Rio in a few months time, the stage is set for the community to see how Evil Geniuses’ plan works out in CS GO.
