Report: Shakezullah set to join Evil Geniuses

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Dust2.us understands that Evil Geniuses are set to unveil former Bad New Bears IGL, Alan "Shakezullah" Hardeman, as the main team's new assistant coach in the coming days. He is already helping them to prepare for the upcoming BLAST Premier Spring Groups; the team's first event of the year and their first without Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov.

Shakezullah is a well-regarded IGL in the North American scene for his time at the helm of Bad News Bears. Prior to the team's dissolution in mid-2022, Shakezullah and co. were a dominant team in the North American domestic scene, notably winning Fragadelphia 16. The team also had multiple, albeit unsuccessful, international outings, attending IEM Cologne 2021, ESL Pro League Season 17, and the PGL Antwerp Americas RMR.

Post-Bad News Bears, Shakezullah has largely been on a hiatus from competition, only playing Cash Cups and qualifiers with various mixteams in the scene. His imminent signing will see Shakezullah hang up the mouse and return to coaching, a role he previously held on Chaos and the humorously named F1-racecar-PEEK. This move will also see Shakezullah reunite with former Bad News Bears coach, Nathan "madcow" Retterath, who has since joined Evil Geniuses as a player manager.

With the reported signing of Shakezullah, Evil Geniuses will have one of the largest support staffs in CS:GO history, with the team now boasting three coaches, a player manager, an analyst, and a director of athletics just on their main team. This massive brain trust will hopefully help the team sort out their lineup at BLAST Premier Spring Groups as they are reportedly set to bring three players from Evil Geniuses Black and White as they look to find a new five-man lineup that can help them contend in 2023.

Evil Geniuses did not respond to a quest for comment by the time of publication.

Evil Geniuses are expected to be:

• Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte

• Timothy "autimatic" Ta

• Sanjar "neaLan" İshakov

• Jadan "HexT" Postma

• Jerric "wiz" Jiang (BLAST Stand-in)

• Wesley "viz" Harris (BLAST Stand-in)

• Jeorge "jeorgesnorts" Endicott (BLAST Stand-in)

• Daniel "vorborg" Vorborg (Coach)

• Alan "Shakezullah" Hardeman (Assistant Coach)

• Damien "maLeK" Marcel (Strategic Coach)

BLAST Premier Spring Groups is set to start on January 19th.

An earlier version of this report indicated that Shakezullah was in Europe with the team. We have found out this not to be true. We regret the error.