This is not the time of the year when a team is busy in solidifying the roster. This is actually the window in which teams that can’t hope to get a direct invite to The International 2018, would have to go back to the drawing board in hopes of making it through the open qualifiers.

This transfer window has seen teams like Complexity and – most recently – Evil Geniuses make changes to their active rosters. Yesterday, the organization announced the departure of Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen and longtime member Clinton “Fear” Loomis. At the day end, Tal “Fly” Aizik and Gustav “s4” Magnusson were included in the EG team.

Looking to The International, we have agreed to receive Fly and S4 from OG to complete our roster. I could not be more excited about the potential of the group we have put together, and I know none of them take lightly the challenges ahead.”

— Phillip Aram, Evil Geniuses COO

But how good this roster change really is? While the best way to know this is to watch out for the team’s performance in upcoming events, we can still kind of predict a few things based on the lineup and what is expected from it.

Removing Misery and Fear from the roster, Evil Geniuses have now lost two of their most seasoned players. While Fear’s experience and achievements don’t need any introduction, Misery was the old wise head who had got experience under his belt. Considering the removal of these two players from the team, it’s quite clear that it wasn’t experience that the team needed right now.

With star-studded teams like Team Liquid, Virtus.pro and PSG.LGD; NA’s powerhouse was lacking the firepower that they once had. This has been the case ever since the team lost their longtime member and one of the best offlaners Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora to Fnatic. Evil Geniuses has been trying to find a replacement for their 3rd position.

The best choice they had was Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan who switched over from his mid role to take up the task.

Being a good player in almost any situation, Sumail made sure to fill in the void of UNiVeRsE. And although he was successful enough in doing so, the team overall took a step back as they lacked the play making capabilities of Sumail as a mid-player.

This meant that the cores would come online quite late as opposed to the fast pace gameplay influenced by the mid player. This was something we noticed in the team’s most recent performance at ESL One Birmingham 2018 as well. The match against Fnatic was where their offlane Ember Spirit couldn’t do much. The core Gyrocopter and Medusa didn’t had much to offer and then suddenly the game went out of control for Evil Geniuses when Fnatic’s Morphling was on a rampage.

This was the case in EG’s lower bracket match against Spirit as well. In Game 1 Sumail was Night Stalker, and in the second game he took the offlane Doom. And obviously the playmaking aspect was missing.

But with the new lineup, EG seems to be back on track as the team hopes to fit in players in their best possible roles. Previously, MiSeRy was leading the team, but now, Fly will have to fill up for the leadership gap. He seems to be the perfect one to lead, as Fly has been part of the winning combination for OG that allowed them to win Four Majors. For many Fly is the European equivalent of Peter “ppd” Dager known for his mental prowess and drafting capabilities.

Plus, with Fly in EG, he will rejoin his former OG teammate Andreas Franck “Cr1t-” Nielsen, with whom he won the best support duo award in 2016.

Now EG has S4 who was once part of Alliance’s TI3 winning roster and the star-studded lineup of Team Secret in 2014-15. S4 came to OG in 2016 and since then has been playing as a solid offlane player. The evidence of his skills can be gauged by two Major wins that he had with OG namely the Boston and Kiev Majors. With S4, taking the offlane role in Evil Geniuses, the team couldn’t have wished for anything better. It seems like the making of another legendary offlaner for EG.

Fly and S4 are set to take their respective roles in the team. The overall impact would be much better for the other team members as well. This is most importantly the best thing for Sumail, who will once again be back to the mid role – a position where he started his dominant run.

Going into the Super Major, Evil Geniuses will have a star-studded lineup once again. This time around with an experienced captain Tal “Fly” Aizik, carry in the form of Artour “Arteezy” Babaev, offlaning prowess of Gustav “s4” Magnusson and the mid-lane prodigy Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan, the team is slated to do well in the upcoming competitions.

Do you even Super Major bro? You will. This June. China Dota 2 Super Major featuring a prize pool of $1.5 Million USD & 2250 DPC Points will take place in Shanghai. Presented by @pglesports & @PWRD_DOTA2 Final stop on the road to The International 2018.#DPC #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/JTfO5URMPf — Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) March 23, 2018

The revamped lineup would be put to test from June 2nd at the China Dota 2 Super Major where they will face off the finest teams of the world. And this is where EG’s confidence would matter the most as immediately after the Super Major would be EG’s biggest test as they fight against fellow NA teams for a spot at TI8 via the Open Qualifiers from June 14th to June 17th .

Considering the tough road ahead of EG, the team seems to have all the right players in place. They will definitely be a strong contender at least on paper.

How it unfolds for the team is something we anxiously await for with fingers crossed.