Evil Geniuses is one of the latest teams to join the South American Dota 2 bonanza for the next DPC 2023. While SA representatives are more often than not beloved by fans due to their surprising strength at the international events, the Evil Geniuses fans, unfortunately, do not share the same sentiment.
Evil Geniuses recent roster moves could’ve been anticipated, particularly after NA’s poor showcase of performance at TI11. Not long after that, EG’s CEO, Nicole LaPointe Jameson, announced on social media the disbandment of their roster, while also hinting that they had their eyes set on the rival region instead.
Now, Evil Geniuses broke the news about their SA team, featuring key players from Beastcoast and Thunder Awaken, two of the best SA teams in the scene. Joining from BC, Adrián “Wisper” Dobles and Jean “Chris Luck” Salazar are two veteran players from Bolivia and Peru, respectively. Before beastcoast, they played for Infamous at TI9, where they managed to surprise a lot of people, reaching 7th place and securing the SA underdog $858K, the most winnings earned by anyone from their region at that time.
After that, Thunder Awaken did something amazing TI11. They, once again, surpassed their predecessors with an outstanding fifth-place placement. Although TI11 didn’t feature a massive prize pool, it was the placement that really mattered. Hence, Evil Geniuses didn’t hesitate and recruited three TA players to join the battle: Crhistian “Pakazs” Casanova, Farith “Matthew” Huamancaja, and Jose “Pandaboo” Hernandez.
Considering the incredible success of Thunder Awaken’s surprising line-up, the first speculations were that EG would sign the entire TA roster. However, since that didn’t happen, this brings up the question of why EG decided to split the successful squad.
Even though it wasn’t mentioned, we speculate that EG wants a roster that surpasses its predecessors, the South Americans teams that is. By selecting the best of both SA powerhouses, the Geniuses might just have the perfect roster they hoped to build. Beastcoast’s mid and offlaner are veteran players, highly regarded for their exceptional shotcalling in-game. Sure, TA’s counterparts weren’t bad at all, but their fall against Team Liquid during TI11 might have revealed a few flaws.
To top it all off, it’s generally a good idea to pick up an experienced captain for your team if creating a new playstyle for the team is their goal. This becomes even increasingly effective with someone like PandaMoo. We already saw how Pandaboo played around strategic vision to guarantee his team the best scenarios in fights. That’s why might just be the best playmaker for Matthew’s drafts.
Meanwhile, Pakazs, the young carry prodigy is more than efficient at his farming skills, securing the highest average kills per game at ESL One Stockholm and PGL Arlington 2022 Majors, which is nothing to scoff at. The stats do speak for themselves in his case, because that will surely match up against his rival Artour “Arteezy” Babaev.
With a fully South American team, Evil Geniuses is looking to take the competition by storm. That means EG is looking at a bunch of new rivals, especially beastcoast, who are basically still the same. On the other hand, Thunder Awaken sold all their players, so unless they get to build another all-star squad, it’s hard to expect much from them. In fact, even other DPC SA Division 1 teams are likely to pose no threat to EG.
Infamous did drop their roster despite placing 3rd last DPC Tour, while SG esports, the fifth-place team of Division 1, completely disbanded for good. Even so, Tempest might be a team worth considering as they placed 4th last season. Overall, EG is definitely now considered the strongest team in the South American and will likely make their qualification into main events without much trouble.
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