Former CLG EU Squad Officially Join Evil Geniuses
Evil Geniuses finally confirm rumours by announcing acquisition of ex-Counter-Logic Gaming squad
A full house - StarCraft II, DotA 2 and League of Legends
Today, two great forces in the eSports world have aligned to form a new kind of evil. Evil Geniuses have today announced the signing of the former League of Legends Counter-Logic Gaming EU (CLG.EU) team. So I guess those tribute videos were a bit premature.
The team maintains all 5 of the former members:
- Top - Mike “Wickd” Petersen
- Jungle - Stephen “Snoopeh” Ellis
- Ability Power - Henrik “Froggen” Hansen
- Attack Damage Carry - Peter “Yellowpete” Wüppen
- Support - Mitch “Krepo” Voorspoels
They are considered to be among the elite in European League of Legends, known for their sportsmanship, skill and personality. The team proved their excellence through 2012, finishing in the top 5 of every major they attended including fourth at the Season 2 World Championships pocketing $150,000. This makes them enormous marketing potential for Evil Geniuses, undoubtedly the best eSports team in the world at marketing in-turn making them the wealthiest team in the West.
I would say this was the worst kept secret in eSports, but there are so many contenders for that title that I'm not going to risk it. The eSports Master of Whispers – otherwise known as GameSpot Journalist Slasher – earlier this month broke the news that “the deal is said to be done soon, with Evil Geniuses outbidding Azubu in the final stages” weeks before the official announcement – nobody denied it of course.
Below you will find the announcement video:
This is a big move from Evil Geniuses who have avoided picking up a League of Legends team for some time now, but instead stated they are waiting on an opportunity, well I guess they found it. The new Evil Geniuses LoL team have already qualified for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) so will not be playing in this weekends LCS EU Qualifiers.
Notably Evil Geniuses recently parted ways with one of their main sponsors, SteelSeries and are expected to replace them with Razer as the other big peripheral company invested in eSports. That fills one of the spots on the sponsor reel at the bottom of the announcement page but what about the other? The order of the sponsors in the reel is important and goes in order of how much they are worth—SteelSeries who are now missing were previously between Intel and Monster so the new sponsors are probably to cover those costs.
Team Captain Snoopeh has posted a statement in response to the announcement on Reddit, here is a snippet:
"This announcement has been a long time coming, and it was fraught with deliberation over several months - an array of meetings with different parties were held over this period and we were very transparent with those involved. It is sad that CLG was not able to accommodate two top League of Legends teams, we had a great year with them and George has been a fantastic friend throughout and I wish him the best of luck in the future – which I believe looks very bright for CLG with Kelby & Garvey's assistance."
He goes on to talk about the nogiation period in the last 5 months, the Slasher leak and thanking his fans, finishing up with whats next for them:
"Update on what our team is doing: we will be moving to Germany on the 1st of February, as we knuckle down for the start of the season on the 9th of February."
You can read the full statement on Reddit.
Now I encourage you to head on over to the official announcement page, hand-crafted by the wonderfully talented EG media team.