After being forced to defend their LCS spot yet again last split Evil Geniuses knew they had to do something to stay competitive. That something turned out to be signing former Cloud 9 Tempest, who EG successfully defeated to retain their LCS spot, AD Carry Altec to replace Yellowpete. Many EG fans were critical of the move, considering the always consistent Yellowpete to be the least of EG's problems. While it's true that Yellowpete's consistent, never feed but never really carry, play was not an active detriment to the team, it's quickly become abundantly clear that Altec is an enormous boon for EG.
After five games in the first two weeks (he had to miss the first day due to delayed paperwork) Altec has put EG's bot lane on the map as one to be reckoned with. Instead of Yellowpete's mostly ignore-able consistent play Altec threatens to run away with games by himself if left unchecked. In such a short time Altec has already posted some impressive scores including 4/2/4 in a loss to TSM, 8/3/2 in a loss to Dignitas, and 3/0/9 in EG's victory over CompLexity. The threat of Altec carrying a game for EG cannot be underestimated, and that threat means teams can't focus as heavily on Pobelter and Innox and still be successful like they could last split.
Adding Altec and creating an additional threat on the team was a great first step for EG, but it was still just a first step. EG went 1-5 in it's their six games and they've got a ton of work to do if they're going to turn things around.
Pobelter and Innox both need to work on their consistency. Both of EG's solo laners have turned in some utterly amazing games to carry the team to victory Most recently including Innox's crushing of Yazuki that carried EG back to the LCS in the relegation tournament. However, both players have turned in some disgustingly poor performances in the previous split. For EG to break out of the bottom of the pack both of their solo laners will have to fix their own mistakes so they can move into the mid game strong instead of playing from behind. So far things are getting better on this front, Innox is turning in more good games than bad ones in the split push top laner meta, and Pobelter is finished with school and moving into the EG house to practice full time.
Snoopeh needs to work on his timing. The EG jungler has taken more than his fair share of flak in the last year, though it's primarily incorrectly focused on his mechanics. While Snoopeh's not exactly on par with world class junglers like SKT T1 K's Bengi, he's far from being the worst jungler to compete in the NA LCS much less bad enough to drag his whole team down with him. No, the real problem for Snoopeh seems to be in his timing. Whether he's wasting time top lane looking for a gank that isn't going to happen, hatching a ward in the river, or arriving too late to the party bottom, Snoopeh never quite seems to be in the right place at the right time. Almost never do we see Snoopeh actually correctly predict the enemy junglers movements enough to setup a counter gank, like the one Brokenshard pulled off against Cloud 9 to create CompLexity's first win of the split. More effective use of his time from Snoopeh would go a long way to developing early leads for EG that they could convert into victories.
Above all else to be competitive EG must fix their shot calling. From engaging a fight before everyone's close enough to participate, to trading Baron for their Nexus. EG has made terrible call after terrible call and it has got to stop. The indecisive nature of EG's calls has been a major pitfall of the team since they first joined the NA LCS and it's not an easy fix, but there is a glimmer of hope. EG's victory over CompLexity had some of the crispest play the team has ever seen. Sadly the team devolved back to their normal selves the next day against Curse, but it's still a glimmer of hope for EG.
If the Evil Geniuses can find and harness whatever magic it was that propelled them through CompLexity with such ease they could, despite their other problems, actually go toe to toe with some of the best in NA and come out on top thanks in large part to now having all three lanes threatening to carry.
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