Evil Geniuses Blueprint Has Finally Worked
Evil Geniuses’ blueprint of investing in North American players and trusting the process finally came to fruition in the form of their first-ever League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) title and a now potential new dynasty.
At first, upon rejoining the LCS come the 2020 season, the Geniuses laid down their plan to conquest the league. This started off with their first iteration of their first-ever roster which was a rag-tag group of players from various teams that included the likes of jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen, ADC Bae "Bang" Jun-sik and more.
Although this last-minute squad netted the organisation a third-place finish in both the 2020 Spring and Summer Split playoffs, the roster was missing a final "oomph" in the equation.
That’s where the first revision of their blueprint came in.
The Geniuses Change Up The Blueprint For The 2021 Season
Not satisfied with their performance in 2020, Evil Geniuses looked to give their initial blueprint a strong revision. This came in the form of bringing in stellar top laner, Jeong "Impact" Eon-young and a whole new bottom lane comprised of ADC Matthew "Deftly" Chen and support Lee "IgNar" Dong-geun. Much to the league’s surprise, this roster performed well over expectations in the 2021 LCS Lock In tournament, giving them something to work off of.
The Geniuses later followed up on that starting momentum in the 2021 Spring Split being constant spoilers to the eventual first-place finishers, Cloud9, as well as being a solid middle of the pack team that consistently took down the lower-end teams. And although they slotted in newcomer ADC Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki, come playoff time Evil Geniuses didn’t have much to show.
This called for yet another revision, one that would be more effective and more surprising than the previous, defining all of the hard work and patience the organisation has put in thus far.
Evil Geniuses’ Blueprint Finally Works In The 2022 Season
With the 2022 season in their sights, Evil Geniuses looked to make an even bigger change to their already evolving blueprint. They kept Impact and Danny as strong pillars to build on, and went for absolute haymakers, these came in the form of superstar European jungler and LEC MVP, Kacper "Inspired" Sloma, support Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme, and mid-laner Joseph "Jojopyun" Joon Pyun which came to a big surprise to the LCS as a whole due to his young nature and amateur nature.
This is now the second iteration of the original roster netted the organisation another strong LCS Lock In performance, one that got them to the finals in which they got swiftly swept by Team Liquid. It was a learning process as although this roster had some veterans largely in part to Impact and Vulcan, the likes of Jojopyun, Danny, and Inspired were newer to the scene, in particular, Jojopyun who had been freshly brought up from Evil Geniuses’ lower teams.
Nonetheless, they took the experience and moved on toward the 2022 LCS Spring Split regular season. Here, the team failed to find a groove, this left many surrounding the league doubting the legitimacy of this young squad, questioning if investing in North American talent to this level was truly worth it. This could be mainly attributed to the team’s lack of consistency: one week they went 0-2, the other they’d 2-0. And for all intents and purposes, the Geniuses narrowly qualified for that split’s playoffs.
However, all of that clearly didn’t matter come playoff time as when it came to facing their first opponent, tournament favourites Team Liquid, in a rematch of the LCS Lock In finals, the Geniuses claim to play. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't quite finish it up leading to a 3-2 loss, getting sent to the losers’ bracket.
Once in the losers’ bracket though, all bets were off as Evil Geniuses’ trust in their young guns and the veterans around them finally paid off in not just a handful of lower bracket victories but a whole LCS championship trophy.
Click to enlargeTo start off the losers’ bracket, the Geniuses handily took down FlyQuest in a 3-1 bout -- this would be the only loss for the team for the remainder of the tournament. Following up on that, Evil Geniuses cleanly swept both Cloud9 and Team Liquid. To put it into perspective, although Cloud9 were seemingly figured out thanks to 100 Thieves’ shutdown top Park "Summit" Woo-tae plan, the team was still a solid roster that dominated all regular season long. On Team Liquid’s side, the North American superteam took down Evil Geniuses in each of their big-name matches, there was no reason they couldn’t do it again… but they did.
All that was left between Evil Geniuses and their first-ever LCS trophy was 2021 LCS Summer Split reigning champions, 100 Thieves. Not only were the Thieves the favourites going into the matchup, 100 Thieves were also looking at international aspirations, that’s where Evil Geniuses gladly came in and slashed it all down.
With confident play all across the board, especially for their young stars in Jojopyun and Danny, smart drafting, and near-flawless execution, the Thieves stood no chance. Evil Geniuses became the newest LCS champion.
All of this, the initial rejoining of the LCS, the numerous reinventions and revisions of their blueprint not only have earned the organisation their first LCS title, it’s also put them on the shoulders of giants that are the likes of Team SoloMid, Cloud9, Team Liquid, and recently joined 100 Thieves.
This young squad can only look up from here, possibly as the LCS’ next dynasty.
