EG justified to 'leave this team behind' after bad year, says Fly of ex-Dota 2 roster
Former Evil Geniuses (EG) captain Tal "Fly" Aizik said in his Twitch livestream that, despite getting dropped by their organisation, the roster will mostly be sticking together and remain competing in North America.
"There will be changes to the actual roster but it's going to be similar [...] and we will be playing in [North America]," said Fly.
For years, EG have been the strongest Dota 2 team in North America. The organisation took home the Aegis of Champions at The International 2015 (TI5) on top of third place finishes at three other TI's.
But no king rules forever.
EG's last few appearances in international tournaments have been disappointing, prompting the organisation to release its entire roster and move to South America.
Fly will stick with his former teammates and North America
Since all the players were released from EG, they are free to join other teams if they want. Fly indicated that, for the most part, he will be playing with his former teammates and they will stick together.
"Because EG let the roster go, it doesn't mean the players are all just gone and the team disappears because they've released the roster. But it's up to us if we want to keep playing with each other or not," said Fly.
Fly has been playing with Artour "Arteezy" Babaev and Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen since he joined EG in 2018. Abed "Abed" Yusop joined the team in 2019. The last member to join EG's former squad was their offlaner Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko in 2021.
Most of the current squad has stuck together for years and based on what Fly said, they still believe their best chances to compete internationally are to work with each other.
Some changes will be made to the team, but for now, Dota 2 fans will have to wait until the players decide to share more news.
Regardless of what happens, the North American Dota 2 scene will never be the same again.
Fly believes it's fair of EG to move ahead without them
EG absolutely dominated the North American regional leagues in the last Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season, placing first in the last two Tours and qualifying for both Majors. The team was expected to at least finish in the Top 3 in one of the Majors, as was characteristic of them.
Yet in both tournaments, EG imploded, being the first team eliminated at the Stockholm Major after a disastrous Group Stage. The team fared slightly better when they played on the home turf at the PGL Arlington Major. But even with home court advantage, EG still couldn't crack the Top 8 at Arlington.
Expectations were muted for the team at TI11 and they turned out to be justified, as EG failed to win a single game in the Main Event, going home at 9-12th place. It is worth noting that the former EG squad's losses came at the hands of two South American squads, with their players likely to comprise the organisation's new roster.
With the results they had, Fly stated that EG was right to move on without them.
"Because of the year EG Dota has had, it's sort of justified to leave this team behind because of how bad of a year it was," said Fly.
The release of EG's roster and the organisation's subsequent departure from North America is the latest of many roster moves in the global Dota 2 scene's ongoing post-TI11 roster shuffle.
With so much of the Dota 2 competitive scene cantered around TI and its multimillion-dollar prize pools, most teams are formed with the goal of getting to the game's world championship tournament in a bid to claim the Aegis of Champions and the lion's share of the massive prize pool.
But only one team can win TI, with Tundra Esports being crowned as the champions of TI11 this year. With that, the rest of the scene are now scrambling to assemble the best rosters possible to try again next year.
For all the biggest moves in the ongoing Dota 2 post-TI roster shuffle you should know about, check here.
Former Evil Geniuses roster:
Artour "Arteezy" Babaev
Abed "Abed" Yusop
Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko
Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen
Tal "Fly" Aizik
Kanishka "BuLba" Sosale (coach)
Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.
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