Evil Geniuses has completed their roster with the signing of Owen “oBo” Schlatter – information just announced this morning. The young player joins the team on a free transfer after parting ways with Complexity earlier this year. oBo will replace Ethan “Ethan” Arnold in EG’s lineup, after Ethan decided to leave the team at the end of February to try his hand at Valorant with 100 Thieves. This is also home to many former professional CS:GO players such as Hiko, nitr0, and steel, and is currently one of the top teams in this game.
The 17-year-old talent – oBo has been away from competitive play for the past six months, after he abruptly left Complexity and returned home to the U.S. while the team was competing in the ESL Pro League Season 12 playoffs last September. He shared that this decision was made after having to play continuously for a long time and being far from his home in the U.S. (Complexity was playing at a bootcamp location in Europe, and oBo could not return home due to COVID-19 lockdown measures). However, after a while, oBo also announced his readiness to return to professional play, and while he prefers teams based in the Americas, he is also willing to play in Europe for an extended period.
oBo is regarded by experts as one of the most promising young talents in North American CS, and indeed the world. He gained attention after being signed by Complexity to replace IGL stanislaw just before turning 16. At the ECS Season 7 Finals held shortly afterward, he and his outstanding teammates reached the 5-6 position after losing 0-2 to Vitality, the team that later went on to win the championship. The best achievement oBo and his teammates accomplished was winning the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2020 with a prize pool of $335,000.
The Evil Geniuses roster has been finalized just in time for their upcoming return to Europe for the ESL Pro League Season 13 tournament. There, they have been placed in Group D alongside Astralis, Liquid, Virtus.pro, Fnatic, and Endpoint. The group stage is expected to take place from March 25 to 29.
With this new and promising addition, hopefully EG will be able to regain their form after a series of unimpressive results, most recently being eliminated from IEM Katowice in the group stage after a win against Gambit and then losing to both G2 Esports and Astralis.
The lineup of Evil Geniuses moving forward will be:
Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte.
Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov.
Tarik “tarik” Celik.
Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz (IGL).
Owen “oBo” Schlatter.
Wilton “zews” Prado (Coach).