Evil Geniuses’ 3-0 sweep over 100 Thieves in the 2022 LCS Spring Split Finals crowned the organization as the sixth to win an LCS title.
Aside from the hype created by taking 3-0 victories against the three top seeds of the playoffs, plenty of buzz is now surrounding Evil Geniuses’ homegrown North American talent. 18-year-old bot laner Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki debuted for the LCS side in the summer of 2021 and provided the playoffs’ most memorable moment with a 2v5 pentakill against Team Liquid.
Meanwhile, mid laner Joseph “jojopyun” Joon Pyun only joined the starting roster this split and now becomes the first native LCS champion in his role since Eugene “Pobelter” Park won with Team Liquid back in 2018.
The 17-year-old is a former Fortnite pro and could be a breakout star this year. Popular pro-turned-streamer Christian “IWillDominate” Rivera revealed just how much faith head coach Peter Dun had in jojopyun in 2020 when he was on the verge of signing him.
jojopyun officially joined Evil Geniuses in January 2021 just three months after turning sixteen. However, a message from Peter Dun revealed on Twitter by IWDominate shows that the coach had touted him as a future star before even securing the player.
Having then just played competitively for a single month and only across a small number of amateur tournaments, Peter Dun highlighted the mid laner as the “person to look out for” in his message dated November 21, 2020, presumably as part of a discussion surrounding possible talent for Dun’s team. He added that “we [EG] think that he can be insane long term.”
At the time, Peter Dun was less than a month into his current stint with the team. The rise of jojopyun and MAD Lions becoming a force in the LEC shows that he has quite an eye for talent.
Winning the North American title now earns Evil Geniuses a spot at the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational which is set to take place in Busan, Korea next month.
EG starts the tournament in Group C alongside Europe’s G2 Esports and Oceania’s ORDER. With the top two teams from the group progressing to the next round, EG should find itself qualifying comfortably with ORDER the clear underdogs in the group.
After securing the spot with EG, Jojopyun was quick to begin the trash talk with their rivals across the pond, announcing in
a tweet
that his side will be “S——- ON EU” at MSI and even went on to
poke fun at Korean mid laner Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon
for having so far failed to win a domestic title.
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