Evil Geniuses Finally Have Their Breakout Moment

During the first two months of the 2017-2018 competitive season, Evil Geniuses struggled to qualify for LAN events and earn qualifying points. They only participated in two Dota Pro Circuit tournaments and their results were modest: 3^rd-4^th place at the PGL Open Bucharest Minor and 5^th-6^th place at the ESL One Hamburg 2017 Major.

With these results, Evil Geniuses were sitting at number 10 in the Dota Pro Circuit rankings, with just 90 points. By comparison, top teams like Virtus.pro, Newbee, Team Liquid and Team Secret had 10 to 25 times as many.

Things were looking grim for the 2015 world champions and many people were questioning their recent roster changes. Clinton “Fear” Loomis coming out of retirement to captain the team was starting to seem like a bad decision for the North American organization.

Fortunately for Evil Geniuses, the double elimination bracket format used at the latest Dota 2 Major (DreamLeague Season 8) allowed them to get a 3^rd place finish and gain not only confidence, but some much needed qualifying points as well.

EG lost their first upper bracket match of the tournament against Team Secret, but then went on to have a great lower bracket run, defeating Infamous, Virtus.pro and Na’Vi to claim the number 3 spot.

Hope this tournament convinces people of doing double elim, felt like the third best team here and got third place, could have been last place in single elim.

— Cr1t- (@Cr1tdota) December 3, 2017

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