Evil Geniuses have announced two new additions to their roster Sunday. Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka and Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko will join the team for the 2021-2022 season. Nightfall will also shift from the carry position to offlane according to the announcement.
It is finally time.
Introducing Jesse @iamJERAX Vainikka and Egor @Nightfall_dota Grigorenko as the newest members of #EGDOTA.
📰: https://t.co/msb5kW6zIM #LIVEEVIL pic.twitter.com/HEeaFP6MT1
— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) November 20, 2021
Nightfall and Jerax join Evil Geniuses
Evil Geniuses added two new players to their roster in order to fill the holes left by Tal “Fly” Aizik and Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang, who left earlier in the roster shuffle. Fly’s departure left Evil Geniuses without a captain. In this new team, Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen will take the reigns of leading the team from the hard support position. JerAx will be taking his place as the four position for the team. A two-time International winner with OG Esports, JerAx brings the same creative and greedy playstyle that Cr1t- used to play for the team. In many ways, JerAx is the only western soft support player that can match how Cr1t- used to play.
While the JerAx move might make a lot of sense, Evil Geniuses’ second roster move this offseason is slightly more confusing. Nightfall, Virtus.Pro’s carry player, will be playing offlane for Evil Geniuses this offseason. While the decision seems strange, Nightfall’s active playstyle and hero pool say otherwise. Nightfall has always chosen to play more active heroes in the carry position, opting to play with his team as early as possible and gaining advantages through sheer numbers. Virtus.Pro’s International 10 run was a great example, where Nightfall played heroes such as Bristleback and Dawnbreaker. Virtus.Pro was one of the only teams to play Dawnbreaker in the carry position.
Evil Geniuses already had a great foundation throughout last year. With Fly at the helm, they were able to get second in both the WePlay AniMajor and the One Esports Singapore Major. However, Evil Geniuses did not have the best run at TI 10, ending the tournament outside the top eight.
