n style=”font-weight: 400;”>Evil Geniuses are the new Dota Summit champions.

Facing stiff competition at The Dota Summit 9, EG managed to halt a skid of poor offline results. More importantly, the “boys in blue” positioned themselves as a legitimate contender for The International.

It was immediately clear that EG would be a force at the Summit 9, opening the first day of group play with a 3-1 run that included a sweep of rival OpTic Gaming. From there, the team atop the group to advance directly to the winner’s bracket finals to face Vici Gaming J Storm.

Though VGJ Storm was the favorite to win the event, EG thrashed them by taking the 2-0 series win in just 51 minutes of total game time. From there, the team went on to sweep Fnatic 3-0 in the grand finals.

Though EG doesn’t get anything more than a paycheck for their brilliant performance here, this was a critical event for the squad.

Following a disappointing season on the Dota Pro Circuit, EG made a bold move in releasing support player Rasmus “Misery” Filipsen and iconic veteran Clinton “Fear” Bullock from the roster just days before the North American open qualifiers began. That move shook out in the short-term, as the new lineup ran through open qualifiers and qualified for TI8. But the long-term prognosis was still questionable.

This performance at The Summit 9 does much in reestablishing EG as an elite Dota 2 team. The tournament included four teams qualified for TI, none of whom were able to put up much of a fight in the face of EG’s onslaught.

EG’s victory doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the favorite to win the top prize in Vancouver. But it does show that EG is once again a force to be reckoned with.