Vorborg: "We had one practice with HexT since ESL Pro League"

Evil Geniuses tried to make the most of their sudden invite to the BLAST Americas RMR by beating Imperial, and competing with FURIA before flaming out against Paqueta. In his post-game interview with Dust2.us' Ryan Friend, Daniel "Vorborg" Vorborg shed some light on his team's performance, internal recruiting, and more.

You never thought you'd be in this position considering the late invite. A 1-2 record, an amazing performance against Imperial, another really solid performance against FURIA, and a tough loss to Paqueta. What are your thoughts on the team's performance through those three matches?

Yeah, it's a tough one. Going into the event I didn't have any expectations. I told the team, and I kinda think it's what we showed in our performances is that I told them we can 3-0 or 0-2 almost no matter who our opponents are. We can beat anyone and we can lose to anyone. That's because of our preparation, we haven't practiced- well we had one practice with HexT since ESL Pro League, which is like six, seven weeks ago now. In general, we've only practiced three different maps going into this event since EPL, so it was always going to be a coin toss of how we were going to do. We showed some good things and we showed some not-so-good things.

There is obviously a lot of conversation about Evil Geniuses and you saw EG Black doing well. Is the blueprint of the program still consistent with the main team in looking at options for your fifth?

Yeah, definitely. But I think that one focus is that our team hasn't been a good team to join for a blueprint player. Our biggest issue ever since I joined is that we have a lack of ownership, leadership, and initiative. I think both Brehze and CeRq were not used to having to take a lot of responsibility. neaLaN also came in as a, at least compared to what EG is supposed to be, a more inexperienced leader. He's trying to take more responsibility and I think there has been a marked improvement these last couple of months but he was probably a more passive leader than what we could have used. Of course, rookies coming into an environment like that is not necessarily the best for a performance. Usually, I think when you see rookies perform the best its like with leadership around them and we really have been looking for players that we can bring in that can bring leadership and then I think once we have that we can evolve it with a guy like neaLaN as I said. Then I think it'll be better for blueprint players to come up. We've not been asked lately, but I'm watching a lot of games with voice comms and practices and all their stuff. We keep a very close eye and I've had conversations with a lot of the players who were considering [for?] roster changes so we are vetting them very thoroughly.

There is going to be a big break in the Major cycle until next year which in going to be in your home country of Denmark. With CS2 coming out, do you think there is going to be any stylistic that you guys make to accommodate new mechanics?

We will see what mechanics make it to "live", but I think overall the macro-game is going to be very similar to now. The maps are going to play the same, there is definitely going to be some strats that emerge like nading smokes and stuff, but I think that Counter-Strike theory is going to remain the same, so we will continue to work on all their stuff to create a common understanding with our new fifth and hopefully all that will still prove useful when Counter-Strike 2 rolls around.

Evil Geniuses were eliminated from the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR and will look to IEM Dallas for their next event. With clear indications that HexT is no longer part of the roster, there are questions swirling about their newest addition. With rumors swirling, time will tell what the next iteration of EG’s lineup looks like.