Evil Geniuses

Evil Geniuses
Short name EG
Divisions Call of Duty
Dota 2
Fighting games
Gwent
Super Smash Bros.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Rainbow Six Siege
Rocket League
Founded 1999 (1999)
Location San Francisco, California, United States[1]
Managing director Phillip Aram (COO)
Head coach Embry Bevil (CoD)
Kanishka Sosale (Dota 2)
Jordan Soojian (R6S)
Manager Ryan Towey (Call of Duty)
Shannon Marie Larkin (Dota 2)
Michael Hassold (PUBG, FGC, R6S)
Stephen Swims-Fuleihan (Rocket League)
Partners Monster Energy
Xfinity
SteelSeries
SanDisk
AMD
Twitch.tv
Hisense
SCUFGaming
DesignByHumans
NEEDforSEAT
Website Official site

Evil Geniuses (EG) is an eSports organization based in San Francisco. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, Halo, Call of Duty, Rocket League, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege.

It was formerly a subsidiary of GoodGame Agency, which in turn was owned by Amazon.com through its division Twitch.[2][3]

The Dota 2 squad won The International 2015, receiving the largest prize payout in eSports history at the time.[4]

History

Evil Geniuses was founded as a Quake clan in Victoria BC Canada in 1997. Playing from the first cyber cafe in Victoria, the Underground Onramp, the original roster included EG MikeJ, EG Killboy, EG Zakath, EG Muppetman and the EG girls featured in Wired Magazine, EG Jasp and EG Mystique. The Onramp and the EG clan were very popular in the emerging gaming circuit, being on the West Coast and having access to a T1 internet connection while the rest of the world was still on dial-up.

Many new members located in Seattle joined the clan and would regularly spar with members of DR including the world's first pro gamer, Thresh.

Members from both the Canadian and American roster were present during the 1997 Gameworks Tournament with access to the gaming lounge. Canadian players were not admitted into the tournament at the time due to the nascent pro gaming circuit, but were allowed to warm up with the contestants.

When the Underground Onramp closed, shortly after the release of modern home broadband internet, most of the Canadian roster went on to new careers, some into game development and still work in the gaming industry to this day. Meanwhile, the American roster flourished and went on to become one of the greatest gaming clans in the history of e-sports.

Philadelphia native and future CEO Alex Garfield started working for the team in 2004.[5]


Evil Geniuses acquired a Defense of the Ancients (Dota) roster on April 12, 2008, made up of players transferring from team eMg.[6] EG entered the StarCraft: Brood War scene on April 25, 2009, with the recruitment of World Cyber Games USA champions Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson, and Dan "Nyoken" Eidson, along with Eric "G5" Rothmuller, Jake "LzGaMeR" Winstead, and Bryce "Machine" Bates.[7] EG saw its North American DotA squad depart on December 3, 2009, following two months of minimal practice and insufficient exposure.[8]

Evil Geniuses expanded into StarCraft II during the game's launch year of 2010 with the recruitment of top American player Gregory "IdrA" Fields as well as the well-known commentator and player Nick "Tasteless" Plott on September 9.[9] In a controversial move, EG acquired the brand of fellow North American gaming organization, Loaded, on October 9, 2010, but the deal only constituted the company sponsors, team owner and their Heroes of Newerth squad.[10]

In 2010, EG expanded into fighting games by signing Justin Wong and Martin "Marn" Phan. Within a year, they expanded their fighting game division with the addition of Ricki Ortiz, Ari "fLoE" Weintraub, and Eduardo "PR Balrog" Perez-Frangie, as well as Japanese players Yusuke Momochi, and Yuka "Chocoblanka" Kusachi. Marn was eventually let go in 2011 at his own request, with the intention to start his own League of Legends team, Team MRN.

On March 31, 2011, long-time member Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen, as well as StarCraft II division manager Nick "Tasteless" Plott departed from the organization.[11] EG lost its Heroes of Newerth squad on July 8 to SK Gaming, due to sponsorship complications.[12] Near the end of that month, the Korean North American Star League champion, Ho Joon "PuMa" Lee, joined up with EG, despite the lack of consultancy with his previous organization.[13] Three weeks later, the top Canadian player, Chris "HuK" Loranger, left his long-time organization of Team Liquid, and joined EG, to compete alongside Fields and Lee in South Korea.[14] On October 21, it was announced that the trio would be moving to stay with the South Korean team SlayerS, in accordance with a correlating partnership established between the organizations.[15] EG saw the return of two former DotA players, Clinton "Fear" Loomis and Jimmy "DeMoN" Ho, with the acquisition of their first Dota 2 squad.[16]

On January 7, 2012, EG announced the dismissal of its long-standing Counter-Strike squad, though star player Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert initially stayed on to produce content related to the game.[17] In September 2012, Bulba and xHobbzeEx left the Dota 2 team due to personal issues and were replaced by Jio "Jeyo" Madayag and Robert "bdiz" Tinnes. On December 5, 2012, EG signed the successful StarCraft: Brood War Zerg player Lee Jae-Dong. On January 25, 2013, EG announced their expansion into League of Legends with the signing of the former Counter Logic Gaming European division – in negotiations that reportedly spanned three months, however the team would later disband due to extremely poor results.[18]

On April 4, 2014, EG announced that they had signed fighting game player Kenneth "K-Brad" Bradley. Prior to this, Ari "fLoE" Weintraub had been let go from the team.

On October 27, 2014, it was announced that three players from the Evil Geniuses Call of Duty squad, Patrick "Aches" Price, Ian "Crimsix" Porter, and Ken Dedo, had left the organisation, later joining OpTic Gaming.[19] The CEO of EG, Alex Garfield confirmed via reddit that he had indeed let three of the players go to OpTic.[20]

On November 21, 2014, Evil Geniuses announced the launch of its first Halo squad, consisting of the twins Jason "Lunchbox" Brown and Justin "Roy" Brown, the 2014 Halo 4 World Championship finalist Justin "iGotUrPistola" Deese and the Eric "Snip3down" Wrona, who is reckoned among the best slayers in the world. The team competed in the Halo Championship Series Season 1 and won 3 online cups to this point. On December 21 iGotUrPistola left the squad due to an injury. He was replaced by Tony "LxthuL" Campbell transferring from the BTH.

On December 9, 2014, Evil Geniuses' parent organisation, GoodGame Agency announced that it had been acquired by Twitch.[2][3]

On December 16, 2014, Evil Geniuses' Yusuke Momochi won the 2014 Capcom Cup tournament. Momochi has qualified for the event by winning South East Asia Major 2014 in Singapore. This win automatically granted him entry into Capcom Cup 2015. On July 19, 2015, Yusuke Momochi won Evolution 2015, taking the win from AVerMedia's Bruce "Gamerbee" Hsiang in a controversial Grand Finals set that saw Momochi suffer from hardware failure with his Razer arcade stick.

On December 12, 2016, Evil Geniuses along with Alliance became player-owned organizations.[21] It was later confirmed that American Dota 2 player Peter "ppd" Dager was named CEO of Evil Geniuses.[22]

At the beginning of 2017, ppd announced lineup switches for the fighting game and StarCraft II divisions. PR Balrog, Justin Wong, Momochi, and ChocoBlanka would depart from the FGC division; Ricki Ortiz, PPMD, and K-Brad would be kept while adding NYChrisG to the team. In addition, ppd announced that their SC2 division would be disbanding as InControL and HuK.[23]

On March 24, 2017, Evil Geniuses entered into the Smash Bros. for Wii U scene by acquiring Julian "Zinoto" Carrington.[24]

Dota 2

After the International 2011, Evil Geniuses announced their new Dota 2 team in October 2011. This roster included Clinton "Fear" Loomis, Rasmus Berth "MiSeRy" Filipsen, Jimmy "DeMoN" Ho, Amel "PlaymatE' Barudzija, and Pers Anders Olsson "Pajkatt" Lille.[25]

EG acquired Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling from C9 in December 2014 and Sumail from Pakistan.[26] On August 8, 2015, Evil Geniuses beat CDEC Gaming to win The International 2015, securing a first-time championship and winning a total of US$6,616,014, which was one of the largest purses ever awarded in eSports. They were also the first American-based team to win the event.[27] A week later, Aui_2000 was released from his contract with the team, with former member Arteezy replacing him on the roster.[28]

EG finished third at both the Frankfurt Major 2015[29] and the Shanghai Major 2016. On March 22, Arteezy and UNiVeRsE left the team to join Team Secret.[30] On March 25, EG announced that former members Aui_2000 and Bulba would rejoin the roster to fill these vacancies.[31]

EG placed third at The International 2016. After the tournament the team released ppd and Fear, who both decided to retire from playing Dota 2 to pursue other opportunities within the organization. They were replaced by Andreas Franck "Cr1t-" Nielsen, who would go on to become the new captain, and Arteezy.

Following their elimination at The International 2017 in August, Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg departed Evil Geniuses saying he would seek new options about his career. Shortley after, Peter "ppd" Dager stepped down as CEO and was replaced by former team manager, Philip Aram.[32] The following month, Evil Geniuses announced that Clinton "Fear" Loomis would come out of his coaching role to rejoin the team as an active player.[33]

In December 2017, EG announced that they would be releasing UNiVeRsE and their head coach, SVG. They would pick up Rasmus "Misery" Filipsen and Sam "Bulba" Sosale to replace them, respectively. In May 2018, EG announced the acquisition of former OG players s4 and Fly after releasing Fear and Misery from their contracts.[34]

Overwatch

In July 2017, Evil Geniuses announced that they would be releasing their Overwatch team just two months after it was originally formed.[35]

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

In November 2017, the team announced that they had acquired the roster for the Rainbow Six Pro League team of Continuum, including Troy "Canadian" Jaroslawski, Nathan "nvK" Valenti, Austin "Yung" Trexler, Brandon "BC" Carr, Ammar “Necrox” Albanna, and Jordan “BKN” Soojian. [36]

Roster

Call of Duty

ID Name Join Date
Saints United States Renato Forza 2018-10-11[37]
Goonjar Canada Jevon Gooljar-Lim 2018-10-11[37]
FeLo United States Tyler Johnson 2018-10-11[37]
Royalty Canada Mathew Faithfull 2018-10-11[37]
Lacefield United States Andres Lacefield 2018-10-11[37]

Dota 2

ID Name Position Join Date
Arteezy Canada Artour Babaev 1 2018-09-20[38]
Sumail Pakistan Sumail Hassan 2 2016-09-15[38]
s4 Sweden Gustav Magnusson 3 2018-05-28[39]
Cr1t- Denmark Andreas Nielsen 4 2016-09-15[38]
Fly Israel Tal Aizik 5 (C) 2018-05-28[39]
BuLba United States Kanishka Sosale Coach 2017-12-20[40]

Fighting games

ID Name Join Date
HelloKittyRicki United States Ricki Ortiz 2010[41]
NYChrisG United States Christopher Gonzalez 2017-01-01[42]

Super Smash Bros.

ID Name Join Date
PPMD United States Kevin Nanney 2014-05-09[43]

Gwent

ID Name Join Date
Lifecoach Germany Adrian Koy 2017-06-01[44]

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

ID Name Join Date
decipLe United States Mike Baker 2018-06-12[45]
Gnomey United States Cole Garton 2017-10-23[46]
Wattz United States Austin Watts 2017-10-23[46]
Wo1f United States Wolfgang Braun 2018-06-12[45]

Rainbow Six Siege

ID Name Join Date
Canadian Canada Troy Jaroslawski 2017-11-10[36]
Necrox United States Ammar Albanna 2017-11-10[36]
nvK United States Nathan Valenti 2017-11-10[36]
Geoometrics Mexico Emilio Leynez Cuevas 2018-09-03
Yung United States Austin Trexler 2017-11-10[36]

Rocket League

ID Name Join Date
CorruptedG Canada Gabriel Vallozzi 2018-03-13[47]
Klassux United States Jason Klass 2018-03-13[47]
Chicago United States Reed Willen 2018-06-22[48]

References

  1. ↑ Norwood, Robyn (November 6, 2013). "The Rise of an Evil Genius". Pomona College. Retrieved November 1, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Twitch to Acquire GoodGame Agency – Twitch Blog". December 9, 2014. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Te, Zorine (December 9, 2014). "Twitch Acquires Evil Geniuses' Agency GoodGame". GameSpot. Retrieved December 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ Gies, Arthur. "Here are the winners of Valve's $18 million dollar 2015 International Dota 2 Championships". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Why I sold GoodGame to Twitch". GoodGame.gg. Retrieved May 13, 2015.
  6. ↑ S., Matthias (April 16, 2008). "eMg DotA morphs to Team EG DotA". SK Gaming. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  7. ↑ Lucas, Bigham (April 9, 2009). "Team EG Announces StarCraft Division". Evil Geniuses. Archived from the original on January 19, 2012. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  8. ↑ Ooi, Danny (December 3, 2009). "EG.DotA officially disbands". MeetYourMakers. Archived from the original on December 3, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  9. ↑ McLinden, Taylor (September 9, 2010). "IdrA and Tasteless join EG". SK Gaming. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  10. ↑ Mađer, Mario (September 24, 2010). "Evil Geniuses acquire Loaded". SK Gaming. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  11. ↑ "Grubby leaves Evil Geniuses". WC3Replays. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  12. ↑ Ong, Wei Shen (July 1, 2011). "The American HoN Reshuffle". GosuGamers.
  13. ↑ Behn, Justin (July 21, 2011). "Puma leaves TSL for EG". SK Gaming. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  14. ↑ Jin, Sherry (August 16, 2011). "HuK Acquired by Evil Geniuses; Joins IdrA and PuMa in Korean Team House". Pikimal.
  15. ↑ Flexner, Reece (October 21, 2011). "Team Evil Geniuses announces partnership with SlayerS". ESFI World. Archived from the original on October 25, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  16. ↑ Horton, Samuel (October 23, 2011). "EG acquires Dota 2 team". SK Gaming. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  17. ↑ Kovanen, Tomi (January 7, 2012). "EG shuts down CS division". HLTV.org.
  18. ↑ Breslau, Rod. "Former CLG EU League of Legends team officially joins Evil Geniuses". GameSpot eSports. Retrieved February 27, 2013.
  19. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (October 27, 2014). "The best team in Call of Duty history is finally breaking apart". The Daily Dot. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Hey, this is Alex - CEO of Evil Geniuses. We're transferring our player contracts to OpTic and passing the buyout compensation along to the players. • r/CoDCompetitive". reddit. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  21. ↑ Wolf, Jacob. "Evil Geniuses and Alliance become player-owned organizations". ESPN. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  22. ↑ Rosen, Daniel. "ppd named CEO of Evil Geniuses". The Score eSports. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  23. ↑ Steiner, Dustin. "Evil Geniuses Announces Huge Shakeups in FGC and Starcraft". PVP Live. Retrieved January 1, 2017.
  24. ↑ "Introduction to Smash 4: Evil Geniuses sign Zinoto". Evil Geniuses. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  25. ↑ F, Dexter. "Demon and Fear return with Evil Geniuses". GosuGamers.com. GosuGamers. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  26. ↑ "Evil Geniuses in talks with Cloud9 to acquire Aui 2000". Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  27. ↑ Tassi, Paul (August 9, 2015). "Evil Geniuses Take Home Record $6.6M First Prize In Valve's 'Dota 2' International". Forbes. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  28. ↑ Walker, Alex (August 18, 2015). "Evil Geniuses Decided To Kick One Of Their New Millionaires Before The International Finished". Kotaku. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
  29. ↑ Dator, James (November 21, 2015). "OG wins Dota 2 Frankfurt Major 2015". SB Nation. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
  30. ↑ Bester, Alan (March 24, 2016). "Shuffle and Deal: Arteezy and Universe leave Evil Geniuses for Team Secret". ESPN.
  31. ↑ "Evil Geniuses Announces Dota 2 Roster Changes". March 25, 2016. Retrieved March 26, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Evil Geniuses Dota roster and company structure update". Facebook. Evil Geniuses. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
  33. ↑ "ust when I thought I was out..." Evil Geniuses. Evil Geniuses. Retrieved October 17, 2017.
  34. ↑ "Roster Update: Evil Geniuses Dota 2 arrivals and Supermajor roster". Facebook. Retrieved May 28, 2018.
  35. ↑ "Evil Geniuses - News - Evil Geniuses Overwatch roster update". evilgeniuses.gg. Retrieved July 3, 2017.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 "Evil Geniuses - News - Operation Blue Genius". evilgeniuses.gg. Retrieved November 10, 2017.
  37. 1 2 3 4 5 "Roster Announcement: Evil Geniuses Call of Duty". Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  38. 1 2 3 "Evil Geniuses on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  39. 1 2 "OG - Timeline | Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Evil Geniuses". evilgeniuses.gg. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  41. ↑ "WorldGaming eSports Professional Player Profile: Ricki Ortiz". esports and Video Game News at IWGN. 2017-07-05. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  42. ↑ "Evil Geniuses to Lose Momochi, ChocoBlanka and Justin Wong; NYChrisG to Join the Team". Shoryuken. 2017-01-01. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  43. ↑ "Kevin "PPMD" Nanney Chosen to Lead Evil Geniuses' New Super Smash Bros. Division". Shoryuken. 2014-05-09. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  44. ↑ "Lifecoach Discusses Gwent Esports, Being a Competitor and the State of the Game". Lifecoach Discusses Gwent Esports, Being a Competitor and the State of the Game. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  45. 1 2 "Roster Update: Evil Geniuses PUBG". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  46. 1 2 "Announcing Evil Geniuses PUBG". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-07-14.
  47. 1 2 "Evil Geniuses enter Rocket League". Dot Esports. Retrieved 2018-06-26.
  48. ↑ "Roster Update: Evil Geniuses Rocket League Acquisition". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-06-26.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Newbee		 The International winner
2015		 Succeeded by
Wings Gaming
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