IEM Rio Major preview: Evil Geniuses
What should we expect from Evil Geniuses at the IEM Rio Major?
IEM Rio will be the second CS:GO Major of 2022 and the first-ever Major tournament to be held in Brazil. The Challenger Stage of the Major will kick off on October 31, with the Grand final of the event set to be played on November 13. Once the Legends Stage kicks off, a total of 16 teams will be competing for the lion’s share of the $1.250.000 prize pool, with the winner walking away with a Major trophy and $500.000.
Challengers Stage: Oct 31st – Nov 3rd
Legends Stage: Nov 5th – 8th
Champions Stage: Nov 10th – 13th
Evil Geniuses:
Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte
Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov
Timothy “automatic” Ta
Sanzhar “neaLaN” Iskhakov
Jadan “HexT” Postma
Qualified as: Challengers
Last Major: Not qualified
Odds of winning IEM Rio Major: 77.5-78
Evil Geniuses are one of the two North American teams that are going to represent the NA region at the IEM Rio Major 2022. The other team is Team Liquid who guaranteed themselves a legends spot, while EG had to settle for a Challengers spot, which in itself is good enough, considering that EG missed out on the previous Major in Antwerp when Jake “Stewie2K” Yip was still leading the lineup.
The North American team that is now led by Kazakh player Sanjar “neaLaN” Iskhakov has turned a new page following changes to their coaching staff and roster with the additions of Daniel “Vorborg” Vorborg, Jadan “HexT” Postma, and neaLaN himself. Since the changes, EG has only looked better and better as a team, and at the IEM Road to Rio 2022 Americas RMR, they showed a glimpse of their potential after flawlessly going 3-0 to book a ticket to Rio de Janeiro.
Evil Geniuses head into the Major as a team who now has an identity and is comfortable in the style of Counter-Strike they are playing. What should we expect from them? Well, we should expect nothing else than a team who are going to take one game at a time and play every game to win. The most important thing for Evil Geniuses is to prove to the world of CS:GO that they can compete against the best teams on the scene.
Pley.gg prediction: 24-26th
World Ranking: #22
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