Evil Geniuses: "Counter-Strike is an important priority for us"

The North American organisation says that it is "looking forward to returning" to tournament action next year.

Evil Geniuses have affirmed their commitment to Counter-Strike amidst rumors that it could join the list of North American organisations to leave the game in a challenging year for esports due to the pandemic.

"Counter-Strike is a legacy esport and an important priority for Evil Geniuses," Greg Kim, Evil Geniuses' Director of Esports, told HLTV.org via email.

After seven years away from Counter-Strike, Evil Geniuses returned to the franchise in September 2019 with the signing of NRG's roster. The team hit new heights shortly after switching organisations and climbed to No.1 in the world rankings following titles at ESL One New York and StarSeries i-League Season 8. EG provided three players to that year's top 20 player ranking: Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold (No.20), Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov (No.18) and Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte (No.8).

The team had a rough start to 2020, finishing third in their BLAST Premier Spring Series group and 9th-12th at IEM Katowice, but improved as the season wore on and picked up three titles in the summer — BLAST Premier Spring Americas Finals, cs_summit 6 and ESL One Cologne North America —, making a brief return to No.1 at the end of September.

Red flags were raised when EG finished top three in ESL Pro League and IEM New York, but it still came as a shock when the team couldn't win a match in Europe in the BLAST Premier Fall Series — highlighting the chasm between European and North American Counter-Strike during the online era.

The team returned home for the North American division of IEM Beijing-Haidian, only to be upset by Chaos in the semi-finals. Fans looked at the final stretch of the season as a potential redemption arc for the team, but EG decided to pull out of BLAST Premier Fall Showdown, DreamHack Masters Winter and the IEM Global Challenge due to "COVID-19-related travel restrictions". With the team currently ranked 15th in the world — the lowest they have been since June 2018 —, there has been mounting speculation that they could follow in 100 Thieves' footsteps and pull out of Counter-Strike.

"The health and well-being of the players and coaches are paramount to the organization," Mr. Kim explained. "As cases of COVID-19 continued to peak around the world, we made the difficult decision to exit the final tournaments of the year to avoid putting them at risk with international travel. We will continue to evaluate competitive opportunities as the industry adapts to the global pandemic.

"We look forward to returning to tournament play in the new year."