Evil Geniuses is one of the most popular and most enduring brands in western esports, and the team has long been a part of Dota 2’s pro scene.
Following The International 2011 and its eye-popping $1.6 million prize pool, the organization known for its success in StarCraft and Counter-Strike decided to enter into one of the hot new games on the market. In early 2011, Evil Geniuses put together its first roster by signing members of Meet Your Makers and Online Kingdom International. Roster changes came quickly and frequently, but the team performed well in tournaments regardless.
That success earned the team a direct invitation to The International 2012, an event that went poorly for the organization. Despite a strong group stage performance, the team was eliminated from the playoffs quickly, resulting in another significant roster shakeup that would mar Evil Geniuses’ 2013 and cause the team to miss The International that year.
Though the team pulled together a solid new roster shortly thereafter, the results were still lacking. A number of the players left from there, with only Clinton “Fear” Loomis and Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora remaining. The two started playing with another team, SADBOYS, in early 2014 and found success by winning the Electronic Sports Prime Shock Therapy Cup at the expense of several other top western teams.
That success prompted Evil Geniuses to sign the other members of SADBOYS including Peter "ppd" Dager, Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg, and Artour “arteezy” Babaev. That group of players finally gave Evil Geniuses the stability it desperately needed.
The team won a number of live tournaments in the months that followed and earned a direct invitation to The International 2014 as a result. Despite playing with a substitute due to an injury sustained by Fear, the team took third place and established itself as a bona fide elite Dota 2 team.
Arteezy and zai left the team in early 2015, but EG found strong replacements in Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling and young star Syed “SumaiL” Hassan. The team hit its stride quickly, winning the 2015 Dota 2 Asia Championships and kicking off a season that culminated with a first-place finish at The International 2015.
Aui_2000 was famously kicked shortly after that victory in order to bring back Arteezy, beginning a strange six-month stretch that saw Evil Geniuses trade players back and forth with Team Secret. Despite that tumultuous turnover, the team managed to settle down and put on a strong performance at The International 2016, taking third place again.
This brought about big changes to Evil Geniuses as ppd was deactivated from the team and moved into an executive role with the Evil Geniuses organization, and Fear stepped away from competition to become a coach. This led to what would become a relatively rough two seasons for EG.
Evil Geniuses posted strong performances in both the Boston Major and the Kiev Major, but washed out of The International 2017. Things went from bad to worse as ppd departed the organization entirely and Fear returned to the active roster. The team struggled competitively, but righted the ship ahead of the qualifiers to The International 2018 by dropping Fear and adding OG players Tal "Fly" Aizik and Gustav "s4" Magnusson.
The team worked its way into the event and took third place yet again. That performance was a strong one and kept the roster stable through the 2018-2019 season. The team performed well throughout the season, but posted a relatively disappointing fifth-place finish at The International 2019.
The 2019-2020 season started in somber fashion as SumaiL was benched after four years as Evil Geniuses’ starting mid.
