Evil Geniuses

Evil Geniuses
Location United States
Founded 1999
Manager(s) Cody Conners
Sponsors Monster Energy
Kingston Technology
Razer
BenQ
Design By Humans
Divisions Dota 2
Fighting games
League of Legends
StarCraft II
World of Warcraft
Halo
Website iyottube.com

Evil Geniuses is an electronic sports organization based in the United States. Founded in 1999, the organization is a premier fields players across every competitive genre. Evil Geniuses is remembered by many as the best Quake 1 clan in the late 90's into 2000.

It is a subsidiary of GoodGame Agency, which in turn is owned by Twitch.[1][2] GoodGame Agency also owns Alliance, a similar eSports team for primarily European teams.

History

Evil Geniuses acquired a Defense of the Ancients (Dota) roster on April 12, 2008, made up of players transferring from team eMg.[3] 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.[4] EG saw its North American DotA squad depart on December 3, 2009, following two months of minimal practice and insufficient exposure.[5]

EG 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.[6] 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.[7]

On March 31, 2011, long-time member Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen, as well as StarCraft II division manager Nick "Tasteless" Plott departed from the organization.[8] EG lost its Heroes of Newerth squad on July 8 to SK Gaming, due to sponsorship complications.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]

On January 7, 2012, EG announced the dismissal of its long-standing Counter-Strike squad.[14] In September 2012, Bulba and Universe 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.[15]

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.[16] The CEO of EG, Alex Garfield announced via reddit that he had indeed let three of the players go to OpTic.[17]

On November 21st, 2014, Evil Geniuses announced the launch of its first ever competitive 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 performs in the Halo Championship Series Season 1 not finished yet and won 3 online cups to this point. On December 21st Justin “iGotUrPistola” Deese 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.[1][2]

Current roster

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm

  • Canada Chris "HuK" Loranger
  • United States Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson
  • South Korea Lee "Jaedong" Jae-Dong
  • United States Conan "Suppy" Liu
  • Sweden Marcus "ThorZaIN" Eklöf
  • United States Libo "Xenocider" Chang

Dota 2

  • United States Clinton "Fear" Loomis
  • United States Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora
  • United States Peter "ppd" Dager
  • Canada Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling
  • Pakistan Syed Sumail "Suma1L" Hassan

Fighting games

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Halo

  • United States Eric “Snip3down” Wrona [20]
  • United States Jason “Lunchbox” Brown [20]
  • United States Justin “Roy” Brown [20]
  • United States Tony "Lxthul" Campbell [20]
  • United States Ryan "Towey" Towey [20]

Former members

  • Netherlands Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen (Warcraft III, StarCraft II)
  • Portugal Nuno "Wenyr" Correia (World of Warcraft)
  • United States Justin “IGotUrPistola” Deese [20] (Halo)
  • United States Greg "IdrA" Fields (StarCraft II)

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/12/twitch-to-acquire-goodgame-agency/
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Te, Zorine (2014-12-09). "Twitch Acquires Evil Geniuses' Agency GoodGame". GameSpot. Retrieved 2014-12-10.
  3. ↑ S., Matthias (2008-04-16). "eMg DotA morphs to Team EG DotA". SK Gaming. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  4. ↑ Lucas, Bigham (2009-04-09). "Team EG Announces StarCraft Division". Evil Geniuses. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  5. ↑ Ooi, Danny (2009-12-03). "EG.DotA officially disbands". MeetYourMakers. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  6. ↑ McLinden, Taylor (2010-09-09). "IdrA and Tasteless join EG". SK Gaming. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  7. ↑ Mađer, Mario (2010-09-24). "Evil Geniuses acquire Loaded". SK Gaming. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  8. ↑ "Grubby leaves Evil Geniuses". WC3Replays. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  9. ↑ Ong, Wei Shen (2011-07-01). "The American HoN Reshuffle". GosuGamers.
  10. ↑ Behn, Justin (2011-07-21). "Puma leaves TSL for EG". SK Gaming. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  11. ↑ Jin, Sherry (2011-08-16). "HuK Acquired by Evil Geniuses; Joins IdrA and PuMa in Korean Team House". Pikimal.
  12. ↑ Flexner, Reece (2011-10-21). "Team Evil Geniuses announces partnership with SlayerS". ESFI World. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  13. ↑ Horton, Samuel (2011-10-23). "EG acquires Dota 2 team". SK Gaming. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
  14. ↑ Kovanen, Tomi (2012-01-07). "EG shuts down CS division". HLTV.org.
  15. ↑ Breslau, Rod. "Former CLG EU League of Legends team officially joins Evil Geniuses". GameSpot eSports. Retrieved Feb 27, 2013.
  16. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (Oct 27, 2014). "The best team in Call of Duty history is finally breaking apart". The Daily Dot. Retrieved Dec 16, 2014.
  17. ↑ http://www.reddit.com/r/CoDCompetitive/comments/2mbv9y/hey_this_is_alex_ceo_of_evil_geniuses_were/
  18. ↑ iantothemax (2014-04-04). "Kenneth "K-Brad" Bradley Joins Evil Geniuses". Shoryuken. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  19. ↑ "Kevin 'Dr. PeePee' Nanney joins Evil Geniuses as their first Super Smash Bros. player". Dev.eventhubs.com. 2014-05-09. Retrieved 2014-06-23.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 http://evilgeniuses.gg/Read/471,Evil-Geniuses-Launches-Halo-Division//

External links