Evil Geniuses' 2021 season has come to an end. Despite a top 3 finish in the League Championship Series Summer Split, EG found itself once again outside of the top 4 in the post-season. EG won its first match of the LCS Championship against Dignitas before narrowly losing to 100 Thieves. After dropping down to the lower bracket, EG was eliminated by Cloud9 in a 3-0 sweep in what was expected to be a far more competitive series given EG's 5-1 regular season record vs Cloud9. 

Despite starting the entirety of the Spring Split and all but four games in the Summer Split, starting jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen only played two games in the LCS Championship. EG, opting to instead start Juan "Contractz" Garcia, only used Svenskeren in game 5 against 100 Thieves and game 1 against Cloud9. Both games ended in losses. 

Following Evil Geniuses' elimination from the LCS Championship, Svenskeren spoke to Inven Global about how the series against C9 went awry and his thoughts on EG's progress as a team and organization from 2020 to 2021. 

What was the game plan against C9 today, and what went wrong in terms of the execution of that plan that led to such a one-sided series?

Usually, we beat C9 by playing aggressively in the early game and snowballing, but in this series, I think C9 had a more relaxed state. They weren't really trying to do too much, and I'd say they kind of mentally outscaled us.

When C9 lost to TL, it was because TL won the early game and C9 was unable to come back. Do you think C9 learned to have more patience from that loss?

I think they just realized that they usually lose the games where they get way too far behind in the early game, so they took it more relaxed. I think we were trying to over-force a lot, and that kind of came back and bit us.

Aside from game 1 today, the only other game you played was in game 5 of EG's last series against 100 Thieves. Does the nature of how you're subbing into the series change your approach to competing?

I don't think it changes too much. I think coming into a game 5 is a little awkward because you've already kind of set the pace of how the games are going and bringing in somebody new can kind of upset it. But, I mean, I don't mind getting subbed in; I think it's good. I just want to play every game I can, so that's my take on it.

Did your experience in splitting time in the jungle on Cloud9 with Robert "Blaber" Huang in past seasons help you adjust to doing so with Contractz?

I was definitely able to handle it better because of my experience from my time on Cloud9. It helped out, but it also didn't really help out since we lost today.

You're one of two players on EG's roster this year that was also on last year's roster. Do you feel like the team has made progress in 2021 when compared to 2020?

I think we are very inconsistent as a team and that hasn't really changed from 2020. We can be very good, but we can also be very bad. That's kind of my take on it. I wouldn't say we improved a lot from last year, but also, we didn't really get worse. I think we just kind of stayed the same.

What about your growth as an individual player?

I think I've definitely gotten better, but with our inconsistency, I will look pretty good at times and pretty bad at other times. As a team, we're just pretty inconsistent.

How do you feel about EG's performance in the 2021 LCS Championship specifically? Obviously, there were inconsistencies as you've said, but do you feel there were times the team also hit its max level during the post-season?

From an outside perspective, you could probably see that our series against 100 Thieves was way more competitive because 100 Thieves were going for a lot of skirmishes and playing the scrappy game. In our games against C9, they were kind of relaxed and weren't taking crazy fights. We just didn't know what the f**k to do.

I appreciate your time and insights as always, Svenskeren. Is there anything you want to say to the EG fans at the conclusion of the 2021 season?

Thank you guys for supporting us. I know this is an embarrassing way to go out, and I am going to do better for the future.

All images by: Oshin Tudayan/Riot Games via ESPAT