EG lose to Turks, what went wrong?
Evil Geniuses have obviously not been on the right path recently. They just lost to Eternal Fire in the lower bracket, sending them to the last-chance stage, or as I like to call it, the lowest bracket. They'll face IHC in their elimination match, but before we look ahead, we must look behind and pick out the issues that led to yet another 0-2 loss.
Evil GeniusesEternal Fire| Evil Geniuses |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
40 - 38 | +2 | 84.1 | 65.4% | 1.10 |
| Jerric 'wiz' Jiang |
31 - 33 | -2 | 68.6 | 69.2% | 1.00 |
 Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov |
32 - 39 | -7 | 68.9 | 73.1% | 0.91 |
| Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte |
33 - 43 | -10 | 74.3 | 63.5% | 0.80 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
22 - 35 | -13 | 50.8 | 69.2% | 0.75 |
| Eternal Fire |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş |
46 - 30 | +16 | 89.6 | 82.7% | 1.39 |
| Ömer 'imoRR' Karataş |
44 - 31 | +13 | 87.2 | 75.0% | 1.38 |
| Buğra 'Calyx' Arkın |
48 - 35 | +13 | 93.6 | 75.0% | 1.37 |
| Yasin 'xfl0ud' Koç |
31 - 28 | +3 | 69.4 | 82.7% | 1.18 |
| Engin 'MAJ3R' Küpeli |
18 - 34 | -16 | 41.4 | 69.2% | 0.74 |
Map Pool? More like Map Puddle
Instantly, EG was sent into unfamiliar territory. Eternal Fire have been pretty decent on Anubis in recent history, but more than that, EG are incredibly uncomfortable on the map. This loss against EF makes five in a row for the NA squad. Every team has a map they're deeply uncomfortable on, that's what permabans are for. However, EG's permaban is Vertigo, leaving Anubis wide open. Even worse, EG are just as hopeless on Mirage, displaying a 4 map loss streak in recent months.
While you might be able to get away with banning Nuke and dodging the newest addition to the map pool, you cannot also dodge the bread-and-butter map of Mirage that every team has in their repertoire.
Anubis
Beyond the issues of the map pool, and into the actual game, the story of Anubis was one of economy. Out of the 20 non-pistol rounds in the game, Eternal Fire's equipment value totaled over $20k in 18 of those rounds. They were never on the back foot, financially or otherwise. To get a taste of this, from round 5 until the end of the first half, Eternal Fire had an AWP in all but two rounds (and in one of those rounds, they could have purchased an AWP but elected not to).
From a pure eye test, the biggest issue in EG's setups was lacking mid-defense. Eternal Fire were able to exploit mid to either split A through mid or force rotations towards A in order to take B. I believe the root comes down to an inability to trust Jerric "wiz" Jiang to hold the A bombsite alone. You cannot play Anubis without an AWPer able to take the initial fight to A-main. EG were unable to play a 1-1-3 or 1-2-2 setup to bolster the mid and B defenses, and that, ultimately, is what lost them the game.
TLDR:
-
Never broke EF's T-side economy
-
Lost mid control constantly
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wiz would or could not hold A alone
Overpass
Unlike Anubis, Overpass showed some real promise for Evil Geniuses. They legitimately could have won it and taken the series to a third map. Their CT-side was just stellar, taking twelve rounds off Eternal Fire. Timothy "autimatic" Ta and wiz, specifically, dominated the A-site. Unfortunately, their T-side was just simply not up to snuff. autimatic did all he could, but when four players on your team total 24 kills at the half, you're never going to win.
Ultimately, EG's T-side was simply sloppy. They left their flanks exposed and players took untradeable disadvantaged duels too many times. wiz was unable to match Ömer "imoRR" Karataş' AWP. Jaden "HexT" Postma was unable to effectively entry, both due to lack of support (via flashes and trading) and simply losing aim duels. Eternal Fire were disciplined, and quickly traded any frags that Evil Geniuses took, while the spacing for EG was all off in crucial site takes.
TLDR:
-
Flanks constantly exposed
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Sloppy spacing on site takes
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No support on opening duels
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wiz unable to match imoRR's AWP
-
CT-side very strong
Looking forward
Evil Geniuses play IHC next. Both teams ban Vertigo, so by luck of the draw, they could be able to ban Anubis or Mirage, giving themselves the advantage in that series. This will be do or die for the Americans in EPL, so let's hope they can take that momentum on the end of Overpass into a positive result against IHC.
