The week Evil Geniuses beat OpTic Gaming. Looking back onto this specific match on a random week of NA's second 2022 stage, this match might have defined 2023 as a whole.
Here is the context:
Obviously, this was the Optic coming off an International Lan victory - this was the best team in the world. This team was 3-0, dropping a single map to C9 (Who had just went 5-0 in stage 1, getting 3rd in playoffs - they weren't quite washed yet) and having a relatively easy time against Faze, while bodying Sen.
EG had just gone 0-5 in Stage 1 of NA, winning just 2 maps. They decide to keep their star op-ers in Boostio and Jawgemo, alongside their smokes player, Reformed. They now have c0m and apoth on the roster, but get 9-12th in the open qualifiers - losing to V1 and 100T. Thankfully they make it out of the second round of open qualifers. They lose their first game to C9, 2-0 with an overtime on map 1, but they bring it back and crush luminosity 2-0 in week 2. Now, it was time to face Optic.
Long story short, EG was able to beat optic on map 1 and 3 (with maps 2 and 3 being just a two round difference). Both winning maps were led by Boostio on the chamber, who went +4 against yay in the series.
But why was this match so important? Well, EG was not seen as a good team at this point. Going 0-5 in the first stage and fumbling groups was not a good thing for them. This match made EG the team that beat Optic. Yes, EG only got 5th-6th in playoffs, and went 0-2 in LCQ, but they were still the team that beat Optic. EG only made playoffs because they beat Optic.EG was only considered hopeful once they beat optic. The interesting thing is though, if EG lost to optic that core and potter are likely dropped for franchising. Think about it - a whole year of mediocrity, a whole year where their best performance is beating luminosity. No way that core gets through. Then we don't get the beautiful story of EG in 2023.
Moral of the story: FNS fucking made these kids, pipe the fuck down.
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