Evil Geniuses Part Ways With the World Champion Top Laner Impact
| Tags: LCS, League of Legends
| Author Rohat Dicle Kılınç
Evil Geniuses decided not to re-sign with the veteran top laner Jeong “Impact” Eon-young.
Ever since Impact joined LCS back in 2014 with Team Impulse, he has been regarded as one of the best players in the region. With his 2x LCK titles and his recent victory in Worlds 2013 with SKT T1, he was one of the first high-profile imports in the league. And after he joined Cloud9 in 2016, he managed to find success in every team he joined, winning LCS Championships with both C9 and Team Liquid, and lastly, he was a big part of Evil Geniuses’ 2022 Spring LCS Championship. The first one in the organization’s history.
As 2022 was the LCS’s 10th year anniversary, lolesports.com was publishing its all-time lists. Impact found himself topping the all-time top laners list, and he was voted as the third-best LCS player ever. Only behind Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng and Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg. But despite the championship in Spring, the Summer has been very up and down for EG. Even with a Worlds attendance, the team had some struggles with their young star ADC Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki stepping down due to mental health-related issues. And with Impact’s contract ending on November 22, Evil Geniuses announced today that they will say goodbye to Impact for the 2023 season. While there is not an official announcement on where Impact will land for the Spring Split, FlyQuest seems to be the leading candidate.
The goat. The legend. @Impact. Thank you for the last two years—your hard work has been vital in lifting the LCS trophy and going to Worlds. We hope you keep the Top Die dream alive on your path forward, and always remember: Once an Evil Genius, always an Evil Genius. @HPE pic.twitter.com/kyIHWJfzIv
— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) November 20, 2022
Off-season partnership between Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves
Despite their Summer Split ending in a less-than-desirable way, 2022 overall wasn’t bad at all for EG. They won the Spring, Inspired was the Summer MVP and they still have a great core. But they still lost a good amount of their overall staff in the off-season. The team’s Head of Coaching Staff, and former head coach, decided to leave the team and joined LEC’s newest organization Team Heretics. The head coach Han “Rigby” Earl also left due to his mandatory service in Korea. And maybe the biggest void was that Danny would not be returning for the 2023 LCS Season.
To replace their lost personnel, Evil Geniuses seem to turn their eyes towards another LCS organization, 100 Thieves. They announced last week that they would bring Kelsey Moser as Peter Dun’s replacement, who spent the last year as the Academy Broadcast Producer, but before that, she was 100T’s head coach and Academy Director. Moser is credited with helping to create 100T’s robust Academy and Amateur teams and with scouting many of the prospects that rose to LCS from that pipeline. EG also agreed with Aleš “Freeze” Kněžínek to become their head coach, who was an assistant coach on 100T for the last two years. According to Brieuc Seeger, who reported the deal, Freeze rejected a deal to become 100T’s head coach.
Wooloo also tweeted yesterday that the Geniuses will buy out 100 Thieves bot laner Ian Victor “FBI” Huang. While FBI’s 2022 performance was a focus of criticism from fans, he is still one of the best ADCs in the league for the last couple of years. It is also rumored that Evil Geniuses will replace Impact with the 100T top laner, Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho.