Report: EG deal with zorte falls through

Ryan Friend contributed to this report

Dust2.us now understands that Evil Geniuses' reported acquisition of FORZE AWPer Aleksandr "zorte" Zagodyrenko has fallen through at the eleventh hour. It is understood that negotiations were progressing well before breaking off today due to unspecified roadblocks. The news of zorte's acquisition failing to get over the line follows Dust2.us' reporting that EG's plans to acquire Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski is in peril and in danger of collapse.

This news throws a fairly large wrench into Evil Geniuses' plans of transitioning into a European roster, as zorte was understood to be one of their marquee targets in the off season. While Dust2.us was unable at the time of publication to confirm the status of the remainder of Evil Geniuses' acquisition targets, losing zorte and with EliGE hanging on by a thread, the reported moves by Audric "JACKZ" Jug and Denis "electroNic" Sharipov are now in different and far more arduous circumstances.

With a day to go before the BLAST Premier roster lock for the Fall Group stage, it remains to be seen how Evil Geniuses will pivot and whether they will accept a potential seeding penalty to continue tooling around with their roster.