EG vs IHC preview

It's been a rollercoaster start to 2023 for Evil Geniuses as they had the high of beating Heroic, but have struggled ever since. The North American's form has been terrible, not to sugarcoat anything after they missed out on a spot in the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR. ESL Pro League Season 17 has also not been kind to EG, as the team is coming into this match against IHC with two losses so far in the competition. The Mongolians haven't had the best of time in Malta, either, as they have as many maps won as EG, zero.

Also read: EG lose to Turks, what went wrong?

Watch out, IHC coming in hot!

The Mongolians started making waves in the world of Counter-Strike when they almost upset a struggling Complexity squad, all the way back in the PGL Major Antwerp. Since then, the team has had a couple of changes but the results are still positive. IHC gave trouble to Outsiders and beat 00 Nation during the IEM Rio Major, after a loss against Cloud9 in the IEM Katowice Play-in, the squad managed to get to the main stage after beating paiN 2-0 and then FURIA 2-1, and during the group stage, IHC was able to beat Cloud9 2-0. Furthermore, IHC managed to get a spot in the Asian RMR without any trouble. During this iteration of EPL, the Mongolians are yet to find a win despite close series against Outsiders and MIBR.

Individually, the team is benefitting from great performances from Garidmagnai "bLitz" Byambasuren, Tengis "sk0R" Batjargal, and Tuvshintugs "Annihilation" Nyamdorj.

IHC is the #1 team in Asia and #18 in the world
IHC has only lost 66 maps in 176 played since forming 11 months ago
The team has played only 64 maps on LAN
They love Nuke; 11 wins in 12 matches

They don't look too Evil right now, so who are they?

It feels like a lifetime ago since EG was an opponent to be feared. Long gone are the days of even being ranked consistently in the top 20 teams in the world. This current squad has been together for half a year, with the exception of Jerric "wiz" Jiang who joined at the start of 2023, but the results have not been positive. On an individual level, the whole Evil Geniuses team has been underperforming. During the last six months, only Timothy "autimatic" Ta and Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte are rated positively by HLTV, with 1.06 and 1.01 ratings, respectively.

Evil Geniuses hope to capitalize on an IHC side that is yet to win in Malta. The LAN experience from autimatic and Brehze comes in handy in these do or die scenarios.

EG has nothing to lose
Need to gain confidence early on in the series
Brehze and wiz need to step-up
autimatic and Brehze have played 1006 maps on LAN combined

Also read: BLAST and Valve expand travel to six people for RMRs

Previous Matchups

Evil Geniuses and IHC have met once previously. The teams started their IEM Rio Challengers Stage journey by playing each other in a game that went EG's way with a 16-9 score. The main man in that game was Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov, as the former EG AWPer topped the fragging list alongside Sanzhar "neaLaN" Iskhakov with 22 kills. It is crucial that wiz can show potential to fill CeRq's shoes by replicating the performance of the Bulgarian.

Likely Vetoes

Should EG choose to be the team that starts the ban/pick process, the series will likely see:

EG ban Nuke
IHC ban Vertigo
EG pick Overpass
IHC pick Inferno
EG ban Mirage
IHC ban Anubis
Ancient is the decider

This specific ban/pick selection is a tough one to predict. Both teams have Vertigo as their permanent ban, and as such, EG can opt not to ban it, instead choosing to exclude IHC's best pick, Nuke. IHC's first pick is Inferno 61% of the time, with Nuke coming in second with a 20% first-pick rate for the Mongolians. EG's first pick is Overpass 40% of the time, with Inferno coming in second with a 20% first-pick rate. Given IHC's win rates across the map pool, the North Americans should opt to play Overpass, a map in which the Mongolians have only played six times in the last three months. EG's Mirage ban should come given the team's current losing streak on the map, and then IHC should ban Anubis due to their prowess in Ancient, where they have a 78% win rate in nine times played.

Extras

According to bookmakers, IHC is the more favored team, but not by much. The average odds for the Mongolians to win is 1.63. Evil Geniuses come into this match as the underdogs, with average odds to win of 2.22. Can EG upset bettors and kickstart their way up again?