EG’s talent pipeline crumbles before the reigning Major champions in BLAST Groups opener

Vitality and Evil Geniuses faced off in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups opening match, but the North Americans never stood a chance in the server.

Vitality’s victory against Evil Geniuses was an easy one, a 2-0 win in two one-sided maps. The European combine took Overpass 16-6 before shutting things down on Vertigo 16-3 to keep EG’s round total under ten in the series.

The series was, perhaps, as easy as Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire managing his players. "The really good part with Shahar is that he’s a really good human being," the French captain said of newcomer Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan before the series started. "Right now I have a lot of easy players to play with and that’s just a pleasure.

"Shahar has a lot of things to learn from our team. I told him that if he listens to all of the players around him, the coach, the staff, he will grow as a really good player really soon. I think he’s ready to take the challenge, that’s why he came into the team, and he knows that we have the right pieces for him to grow as soon as possible."

In their first series with the Israeli youngster, Vitality dominated the former Evil Geniuses B squad, who were brought up to play the tournament in Denmark around the North American organization’s stalwart Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta.

flameZ, previously a rotator on OG, kept things under control on the B site of Overpass in the opening map of the series. The newcomer didn’t die a single time as Vitality got off to a 10-0 start, although it was his B-site partner, Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, who was the tip of the spear with 22 kills to his name by the half.

Evil Geniuses put up a cosmetic comeback on the CT side after winning the pistol round by securing a total of five rounds out of the seven played, but were eventually shut down 6-16 on their pick.

The North Americans made it two out of two in CT pistols to take the lead on Vertigo, but were shut down in the second round as Vitality leapt ahead to yet another one-sided half. flameZ and Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi led the charge with 13 and 12 frags to their names, respectively, in the 12-3 half.

The second half, a 4-0 sweep, put an end to Evil Geniuses’s suffering in under two hours as Vitality cruised to the Group A upper bracket final where they will play the winner of Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Complexity. Evil Geniuses wait for the loser of the bout in the lower bracket.