Proving Grounds Summer 2022
Some notes for EG fans new and old

EVIL GENIUSES ACADEMY

Fine, the numbers don’t look pretty but there’s a positive trend. With only 2 series losses during the second round robin, they consistently put up a fight vs the top teams and are a much stronger team than their placement indicates. This is a team that’s looking to prove that “lose is improve”, and they have done a good amount of both already so I’m ready to watch them win, for real.

• Srtty and Tomio were promoted from last year’s Evil Geniuses Prodigies (Danny’s old team!). They have been playing together on EG for almost 2 competitive years.
• These guys are grinders. Tomio, Srtty and Kaori average around 100 CQ games per split. They are consistently in the top 20 too.
• EGA players also make up most of EG League of Legends streams.
• This Summer, EGA are looking to redeem themselves after an embarrassing PG Spring that had them losing an elimination series to amateur team Taco Gaming.
• If EGA played a Bo2 vs a Worlds team, they would tie. (I have no proof but also no doubt.)

TOP: Srtty

• Confident and driven.
• Played 17 different champions across the Summer Split.
• Highlighted by Cubby (Academy caster who you may have seen featured in the LCS broadcast recently) as one of the Top Five Rookies in the league.
• This #LIVEEVIL tweet:
  

  Every academy team is so bad, hopefully we can begin to translate scrim results to stage after this week given how hard we consistently dumpster the top teams behind the scenes

  — EG Srtty (@_Srtty) July 1, 2022

JUNGLE: Tomio

• During his time in EGP, he earned a reputation as a hyper aggressive carry jungler.
• Tomio was promoted to EGA at the end of Summer 2021, when Contractz was brought up full-time for the LCS team.
• A bit of a CQ nightmare according to some players. He’s talked more than once about being in “probation”. Make of that what you will.
• Semi consistent streamer. His stream has gotten some shoutouts from the Academy broadcast. He’s very entertaining and has a… unique personality.

MID: Soligo

• Do I really need to explain Soligo to you?
• EG fans should remember Soligo Mind Control.
• He was in LCS in 2021 and then he was demoted to Academy for… reasons? We still can’t really understand. He helped DIGA earn a Top 6 finish in PG Summer, which was unexpected given their awful regular season.
• He’s great at enabling players around him, but he can absolutely carry games too.

BOT: Kaori

• Two times TCL All-Pro.
• Earned Top 3 CQ in Spring (top 5 in both Spring splits).
• Parth Naidu called him: “one of the most underrated ADCs in the west the past few years”.
• He went to Korea with the LCS team as a sub for MSI and grinded soloq like a demon. After he reached 300 games, I kinda stopped keeping track.
• Too good for Academy, please someone get him to LCS.

SUPPORT: Smoothie

• There’s no way you need me to tell you about Smoothie.
• He was brought in for the Summer Split as a replacement for SkyTec.
• Has been playing from Canada on around 60 ping.
• Seems to have brought direction to the team.

EVIL GENIUSES PRODIGIES

For Summer, EG assembled a team filled with some of the hottest talent available. The roster got a lot of hype, deservingly so. The results were just slightly underwhelming... But still, a very exciting team to follow with many players that could make the jump to Academy in the next year.

TOP: Faisal

• Olaf is his signature champ, he even had a pentakill on it during the Open Qualifier #2.
• The only remaining player from EGP’s Spring roster.
• His Gangplank is 1v9.

JUNGLE: Yukino

• Also known as yukino cat.
• He became well known in Spring for playing a lot of CQ (and smurfing in it). He finished Top 10 in the Spring Split 2.
• Didn’t have any competitive experience before this team.
• Youngest player currently on EG.

MID: Doxa

• Doxa diff. Two words every amateur enjoyer has learned to respect. It’s always a Doxa diff angle.
• He was part of the Taco Gaming that defeated EGA in the lower bracket of PG Spring.
• His Zoe is terrifying (just look at his Twitter profile pic).

BOT: miya

• Known for reaching Challenger in all five roles. Some sources say she was being scouted by EG for a different position in Spring.
• Like Yukino, she also had no competitive experience before this team.
• Follow her on Twitter, she’s clearly got a great mind for the game and from time to time she posts her thoughts over there in a very eloquent manner.

SUPPORT: donbray

• Played with Doxa in TSM Amateur last year.
• When you look at his team history, you’ll notice he has been part of 3 different LCS affiliate teams: TSM Amateur, 100 Thieves Next and EGP.
• Used to be a Bard one-trick.

PROVING GROUNDS

Established in 2021, Proving Grounds is a tournament that brings together the best talent in North America that's not in LCS. Many amateur teams compete in the Proving Grounds Circuit Qualifiers to earn one of the 10 spots available for the main event. The other 10 spots go to the Academy teams.

The tournament starts with a Play-In stage: the bottom 4 Academy teams and the bottom 4 amateur seeds play a single Bo3 series in which the winner advances to the main event.

Take a look at the Leaguepedia page to see the full bracket, the qualified teams and their rosters.

Here's the schedule for Today.

Evil Geniuses Prodigies vs Golden Guardians Academy - 3 PM PT

Then after that.

Evil Geniuses Academy vs CLG Faith - around 5 PM PT

The games will be live on either the LCS Twitch channel or the Academy channel.

If you need more information:

• Follow EGAcademyUpdates. Unofficial source for anything EGA/EGP. A friend of mine runs this account and sometimes he remembers to post useful information.
• Join EG Discord. If you choose the Amateur and Academy fan roles, you will get pinged for series starts, so you’ll never miss them. That’s pretty OP in my opinion. Also, come say hi and watch the games with us, it’s fun.