EG misses out on RMR
With all eyes on the new qualifier system for the RMR, there were questions whether Evil Geniuses, who have struggled at the top tier level this year, would struggle at the RMR in Mexico. As it turns out, Evil Geniuses would not even make it to Mexico to begin with.
The squad faced a brutal awakening in the first match of the swiss-system closed qualifier as they fell to yur in a 19-16 overtime battle that sent waves throughout the scene. The early first-round upset was not expected and only a continuation of a trend that worried fans of the region.
The Seattle-based organization would start to recover as they took down Reign 16-8 and Vendetta 16-8 to go 2-1 in the group stage. Things were starting to settle back for the squad as they headed into the last few matches of the weekend.
Tragedy struck, however, when the Buchholz scoring system would see them paired up against MIBR who just came off a hard-fought 2-1 loss against the first American qualifier Complexity. The Brazilians had beaten Complexity twice in the last week, but it was only this time that the Dallas Cowboys-owned team were able to get one back.
Facing one of the top teams from the region, Evil Geniuses would not be able to do anything as they would lose 0-2. For a team like Evil Geniuses, this is a position that the team should have never been in and for players of their caliber, a team like MIBR should not have posed too much of a threat.
At the same time, social media was abrupt with condemnations of the organization for their failure to qualify 3-0, for losing to a team like yur, for losing to MIBR, and even being in the position of elimination. Aleksandar "Kassad" Trifunovic took to twitter during all of this to place a bounty on the heads of EG, offering $1,000 to any team that would be able to prevent them from making it to the RMR. Now, the pressure of the entire international CS:GO community was focused on this EG team that has had success few and far between in 2023.
Facing up against NA streamers and fan favorites Mythic Reborn, the Sanzhar "neaLan" Iskhakov squad would convincingly take them down 2-0 on the last day, putting themselves in prime position to make it through to the RMR. The results of other matches needed to go their way, however. Should ATK and oNe win, they would have been able to skip the final seeding match thanks to that same Buchholz system that pitted MIBR against them. However, ATK would lose 1-2 against Nouns, allowing the DAO sponsored team a direct trip to Mexico while oNe and EG would square off as the last match of the event.
A match starting late at night, oNe coach Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu noted that his team was not being given proper rest in between the match they just completed against timbermen and the one they were about to play. Organizers were attempting to stick to a schedule while his team simply needed to have some time to adequately square off against EG.
While the dispute was not seemingly resolved, it didn't matter much as oNe were the stronger side as they brushed aside Evil Geniuses in a 2-0 drubbing. It is another embarrassing mark on the Evil Geniuses organization which has been hounded on social media for their seemingly non-competitiveness on the grand scale as an organization with incredible staff support and money behind it. For the squad to not make the Americas RMR after going 3-0 during the last cycle, it is a massive step backwards and one that will likely bring further scrutiny to the players, management, and organization as a whole.
Evil Geniuses still have a few tournaments left, but without the illustrious Paris Major awaiting, they seem almost meaningless. The squad travels to Malta immediately as they are set to play against Cloud9 in ESL Pro League S17 on Wednesday at 01:30PM.
