Evil Geniuses scrap 15-man CSGO roster in Blueprint overhaul
Evil GeniusesEvil Geniuses have announced that they are revamping their CS:GO division nine months into the Blueprint project.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Evil Geniuses admitted that the performance of their CS:GO team “has been a miss”, after the squad failed to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major RMR and finished 29th-32nd at ESL Pro League Season 17.
The North American organization launched in June a development program called Blueprint that was aimed at building up North American Counter-Strike. EG signed the Party Astronauts and Carpe Diem lineups to create what was described as a fluid 15-player roster.
Evil Geniuses drew on the success of their LCS squad when developing Blueprint, but the project has failed to yield the desired result and has been derided by the CS:GO community. The organization’s main team is on an eight-match losing streak on LAN and was denied a spot at the Americas RMR after losing to LOS + oNe, who secured the $1,000 bounty placed on EG by analyst Aleksandar ‘kassad’ Trifunović.
Evil Geniuses told Dust2.us that they will drop the EG White lineup, formerly known as Party Astronauts. The team peaked at 39th in the world rankings while playing under the organization, winning Fragadelphia 17 and attending ESL Challenger Melbourne 2022, where it finished in last place.
“We’ve learned a lot in the last ten months about how we want to support our academy program and are refocusing our efforts on the top ten players from our current 15-person roster,” EG said in the statement.
The news comes amid reports that Evil Geniuses are close to signing Sprout’s Ismail ‘refrezh’ Ali to their main team. The former Heroic player will replace Jadan ‘HexT’ Postma, who is being demoted to the academy squad, according to Dust2.us.
The North American organization is currently under intense scrutiny following reports of mistreatment of League of Legends star Kyle ‘Danny’ Sakamaki. In a statement to Dexerto, Riot Games confirmed that an investigation into the matter is being conducted by a third-party law firm.