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Evil Geniuses were flying high after their title-winning run at ESL One New York, but their wings were melted at DreamHack Masters Malmo as they crashed out of the tournament on the second day.
Every team is bound to have its ups and downs, however, there are rare occasions where a team experiences anything like EG did this Wednesday in Sweden.
Only last week, Evil Geniuses entered ESL One New York as one of the underdogs and came away with their first win of the Intel Grand Slam season.
That impressive run featured a pair of shock wins over Astralis, including a momentous 3-1 victory in the grand finals.
Having shown immense talent and great form in the Big Apple, EG arrived at DreamHack Masters Malmo as the team to watch and were considered by many to be a chance for the title.
They were paired with Grayhound in the opening round of Group B, which looked like a very favourable fixture for a team fresh off a big tournament win.
But when it came to execution, EG fell short.
A close 8-7 first half was succeeded by a rather one-sided second half (8-3) when we saw Grayhound walk over EG, who did not have an answer for Ozzie’s T-side strategy.
That 16-10 defeat saw EG descend to the lower bracket, where they met up with the ESL One New York 2018 champions, mousesports.
While EG were still considered strong favourites to win, mouz pushed them to their limits and secured a spot in round two with a 16-10 win on Mirage and a 22-20 overtime victory on Train.
With that, Evil Geniuses were sent packing from Malmo after only two days, joining Team Envy, TYLOO and North as one of the worst teams of the tournament.
Those four teams will take home a consolation prize of $3,000 and an unenviable 13th-16th place finish.
