Cloud9 acquires BLAST Premier spot as Evil Geniuses exits CS2
Evil GeniusesCloud9 has acquired Evil Geniuses’ Counter-Strike 2 BLAST Premier slot as the latter slowly exits esports as a whole.
As the Counter-Strike world celebrates Team Vitality’s trophy lift at the BLAST Premier World Finals against FaZe Clan, starting a promising rivalry between the teams in CS2 to end off 2023, EG has quietly sold their BLAST Premier slot.
It was announced right before the BLAST Premier World Finals’ conclusion that Cloud9 has bought out EG’s slot after a lengthy bidding process.
Cloud9 has had a long history in CS, historically fielding North American rosters, and even winning the region’s first and only CSGO major in 2018.
However, after taking a brief hiatus from the game in 2021, they came back with a European roster after acquiring Gambit Esports’ CSGO roster in 2022.
With this new European roster, Cloud9 has had promising results, winning a trophy in 2022 at IEM Dallas, and ending top 4 at IEM Rio 2023, although, they missed the BLAST Paris Major.
Evil Geniuses sells BLAST Premier slot to Cloud9 amid esports exit
However, this acquisition also marks EG’s slow exit from esports, as the org removes itself from its various slots as it crumbles internally.
“Since its inaugural season, Evil Geniuses has supported and participated in BLAST Premier as part of our commitment to the NA Counter-Strike scene,” writes Chris DeAppolonio, CEO of EG in a press release.
“While we will no longer participate in Premier going forward, we are thankful for the three years we competed and look forward to supporting NA Counter-Strike talent within the league from afar.”
EG’s exit from esports started when they exited LCS amid reports of their mistreatment of their star players. And further reports came as their Champions-winning Valorant roster found themselves in contract jail.
This also follows as EG scrapped their CS project, “The Blueprint”, after acquiring multiple NA CS rosters, abandoning the failed roster.
