Evil Geniuses plot trip to Arlington for ECS Season 8 Finals with win over Cloud9
Evil Geniuses have soundly defeated Cloud9 2-0 in the grand finals of the third week of ECS Season 8, earning themselves a spot at the LAN finals alongside Sharks, NiP, and AVANGAR.
Having already crushed Complexity with a comeback and a strong performance on their own map pick yesterday, Evil Geniuses entered the grand finals series against Cloud9 with supreme confidence. An eleven-round spree for Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz's side had them shutting down Cloud9 on their own pick of Train, with Cloud9 only managing to notch two rounds towards the end of the half before Evil Geniuses closed things out with a 16-2 victory.
An early back-and-forth battle on Inferno saw Cloud9 begin to contest as the two teams remained neck-and-neck early on at 3-3, but once Evil Geniuses had rifles and utility, control of the game quickly went their way. Again, Cloud9 found themselves locked out of the map as stanislaw and company only conceded one additional round in the half, pulling ahead 11-4 at halftime.
A pistol win for Cloud9 was immediately answered back with a force-buy from Evil Geniuses, who swiftly extended their lead to 14-5 to put themselves moments away from a map victory. A last-ditch effort from Damian "daps" Steele's side saw Cloud9 garner four more rounds, but the deficit proved too large as Evil Geniuses were able to close out the map 16-9 to earn themselves a spot at the LAN finals in Arlington, Texas.
Cloud9Evil Geniuses| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
26 - 35 | -9 | 71.2 | 53.5% | 0.82 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
21 - 37 | -16 | 58.0 | 53.5% | 0.68 |
 Damian 'daps' Steele |
22 - 39 | -17 | 57.1 | 60.5% | 0.63 |
| Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
16 - 36 | -20 | 53.6 | 46.5% | 0.57 |
 Oscar 'mixwell' Cañellas |
17 - 38 | -21 | 51.0 | 44.2% | 0.51 |
| Evil Geniuses |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov |
43 - 26 | +17 | 102.5 | 90.7% | 1.60 |
| Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte |
43 - 18 | +25 | 97.0 | 86.0% | 1.57 |
| Ethan 'Ethan' Arnold |
34 - 19 | +15 | 88.4 | 90.7% | 1.42 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
35 - 19 | +16 | 80.6 | 90.7% | 1.39 |
| Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguz |
30 - 21 | +9 | 78.4 | 74.4% | 1.18 |
With Evil Geniuses qualifying, half of the teams attending the ECS Season 8 Finals have been confirmed. Four more teams, two from Europe and two from North America, are set to be determined through the winners of the final two weeks of play.
The team list for the season finals currently looks as follows:
 AVANGAR |
Evil Geniuses |
 NiP |
 Sharks |
 EU Week 4 winner |
 NA Week 4 winner |
| EU Week 5 winner |
NA Week 5 winner |
