Written by: Jared "trance" Wynne

It's no big secret in the Counter-Strike community that traditional Canadian powerhouse Evil Geniuses had recently signed up to attend the CPL's Summer 2005 event. What makes this newsworthy? One of NoA's starting members, Griffin "shaGuar" Benger, is signed up with the team. An announcement was made that NoA, as a team, was going inactive until the third season of the World eSports Games started in August, and that the team's players were allowed to seek out other teams to play for during this break; but, this was the first time anyone had seen actually proof of an NoA player taking up arms for someone else.

EG's recent return to the competitive scene resulted in a disappointing 9th-12th place finish in WEG's second season. In Korea EG came into close contact with shaGuar, as EG's manager Alex Garfield pointed out to me when I spoke with him. "We had spent a lot of time with Griffin at the WEG event in Korea this past month, and after getting to know him, we decided that he was our top choice to play for Scott at CPL." He is of course talking about long-time EG member Scott Bechdholdt, who Alex revealed would be unavailable during the summer season by saying, "EG's lineup of Kolach, Tyndale, Lari, Stevenson, and Scott is actually the most stable roster in the world. Scott, however, is going to summer school right now, and we needed a replacement for him for the CPL event."

Many people, especially fans of the team, have wondered how long shaGuar will be playing with EG, and Alex cleared this up by saying, "Griffin will be playing for us at CPL as well as in all WCG qualifiers and subsequent events." As far as contracts go -- nothing is official. When asked about legally binding deals, Alex's reply was, "Legally, he is still a member of Team NoA, and as such, we're operating on the fact that he wants to play for us at these events, and we feel the same way."

EG has always been a team known for their high level of natural teamwork and chemistry, largely due to the length of time that they have played together. When asked how the team was incorporating shaGuar into the roster after going so long with a roster change, Alex told me, "We've been employing a very strict schedule to ensure that Griffin will be accustomed to our play styles and strategies. Having played with each other for so long, our playbook is much more extensive than any other team out there. So it will take some time for Griffin to get used to playing with us, but we feel that everyone will be ready by CPL. We will not be playing in any bootcamps or warmup tournaments due to certain players' work obligations."

As everyone knows, this years' CPL Summer tournament will not be quite as prestigious as those in the past. The list of teams has been severely hindered by the eSports World Cup taking place on the same weekend. However there are still a few top teams competing (including EG). When asked how his team was hoping to do in Dallas, Alex said, "Well, as a team, we don't like to predict our own matches. We'll prepare as much as we possibly can, and play our hearts out for all of our fans and supporters. I'd like to thank ZBoard, Newegg, ABIT, and Steelpad for their overwhelming support. Without them, we wouldn't be attending. Obviously the team list is not as extensive as usual, but there are still many good teams going from all over the world, so we look forward to the challenge."

This makes EG's roster for CPL look as follows:

stevenson
LaRi
tyndale
kolach
shaGuar