Former Quincy Crew player, Arif "MSS" Anwar will temporarily assume the offlane position at Evil Geniuses.
A couple of hours ahead of their first Dota Pro circuit series in the new year, Evil Geniuses announced Arif "MSS" Anwar standing in for Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko, who seems to have faced travel issues and is yet to arrive in the US.
For Nightfall, joining EG marked his first time playing for an organization outside the CIS region and the first time he switched roles, from carry to offlane. Unfortunately, he got to play only four series in NA, from which two were losses.
Evil Geniuses were definitely one of the teams that surprised the most in the post TI10 shuffle. It wasn’t only Nightfall’s unexpected role and region swap that took the fans by surprise but also Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka’s return to the competitive scene after a two year break to take the support five position at the NA powerhouse.
But despite the rather powerful line-up, EG’s results entering the second half of the Winter Tour regional league are mixed. Two wins and two losses puts them in fourth place, tied with 4 Zoomers. The tie is bound to be settled today, January 8, as the two teams are scheduled to go head to head at 14:00 EST/ 21:00 CET.
MSS will play in the offlane through the rest of the Dota Pro Circuit first tour, and will mark his second time representing the EG banner. He last wore the Evil Geniuses t-shirt back in 2013, somewhat at the beginning of his career, when EG was just the second organization he was playing for. According to the EG announcement, the fans should expect Nightfall to resume his stay with the team after the Winter Tour.
Evil Geniuses roster:
Artour “Arteezy” Babaev
Abed Azel “Abed” Yusop
Arif “MSS” Anwar (stand-in)
Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen
Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka
Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko
