Evil Geniuses Are The Winners Of ESL One Cologne NA!

After a grueling Best-of-Five that took almost 6 hours to complete, Evil Geniuses can now call themselves winners of ESL One Cologne. The North American team had to fight hard to get past Team Liquid.

On Nuke, Liquid were quick in establishing a solid lead. This was quite easy to do on the CT side, which is why they came out of the first half with 9 points. On their T side, they unfortunately suffered from the same issues as EG – the defense was just too strong to overcome and and Liquid, despite winning the pistol round, had to slowly watch their lead dwindle. The still fought all the way through to overtime, but there, Evil Geniuses eventually got the victory. Ethan “Ethan” Arnold led the team with 27 kills and a 1.31 rating.

On Vertigo, Liquid felt right at home. They’re proficient on the map and were able to use this to their advantage against EG. With a 12-3 lead, Jake “Stewie2k” and his mates appeared to mentally be on the next map already. They let EG slip past with 6 round wins straight. Then, finally, Liquid found the remaining 3 rounds and ended Vertigo on a 16-9 scoreline. Jonathan “ELiGE” Jablonowsky and Russel “Twistzz” VanDulken were the top performers for the squad.

On Inferno, the team had to concede victory despite a strong first half. Evil Geniuses were just too strong on the CT side and Tarik “tarik” Celik didn’t give them any chance. With a 16-12, EG were just one map away from victory, while Liquid stared in the face of defeat. However, they didn’t want to give up this easily. Michael “Grim” Wince may have had his issues on Mirage, but the rest of his team turned up to deliver a quick 16-6 victory. Thus, the teams headed for Dust2.

2-2 FOR THE LAST MAP

What a fitting map for the last engagement between these two teams! Since the start of the match, 5 hours had already passed. All this time had definitely left a mark on the players. Without ELiGE, Liquid wouldn’t have stood a chance. The young player went through the roof and almost cracked the 30 bomb. Unfortunately, he was the sole performer in his camp. On the other side, Ethan, Tsvetelin “CerQ” Dimitrov and Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte led the charge for Evil Geniuses.

Liquid led 9-6 after the first half and soon coverted that to 11-6. At that point, fatigue started to set in. Twistzz faltered, even Keith “NAF” Markovic was unable to keep his performance up. Evil Geniuses mounted a nearly perfect comeback to run away with the 16-12 map victory. They were champions of ESL One Cologne NA.

Team Liquid don’t have to kick themselves for how this match ended. A few weeks ago, they had undergone a severe roster change and now they’re already back in the Grand Finals, pushing domestic rivals to their very limits. This is a promising start for these young players. Maybe, they won’t have to stand in Evil Geniuses’ shadow for much longer.