Evil Geniuses vs 100 Thieves Prediction: the Thieves' Second Try

Monday, July 25, will be the second day of Week 5 of the League of Legends Championship Series 2022 Summer tournament. Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves will clash.

League of Legends Championship Series 2022 Summer (LCS 2022 Summer) is the second split of the tenth year of the professional League of Legends in North America. Ten teams compete in a round-robin group stage to advance to the playoffs for a $200,000 prize pool and a trip to Worlds 2022. This split takes place from June 17 to August 14, 2022. 

Evil Geniuses got off to a very good start in this split. The guys started the super week undefeated, knocking out Cloud9, 100 Thieves, and FlyQuest. The second game week also started with a win. This time the Immortals fell. Evil Geniuses are currently going undefeated in this split, taking first place. At the end of the week Evil Geniuses lost to CLG, thereby losing their advantage of one win. At the beginning of week three, the guys beat TSM so that they didn't give them a single kill, further solidifying first place in the overall standings. At the end of the week, Evil Geniuses began their winning streak by defeating Golden Guardians and defeated Dignitas. At the end of the week, Evil Geniuses won over Team Liquid, who was in second place in the overall standings. At the beginning of week five, Evil Geniuses continued their winning streak by beating CLG in a fairly easy match. Today the guys will meet 100 Thieves, who are currently in second place.

Evil Geniuses, often abbreviated to EG, is one of the oldest American professional gaming organizations, founded in 1999. Evil Geniuses formed in 1999 as a Quake team and made it to League of Legends in 2013. The organization played 2 splits in the EU LCS before they moved to North America in 2014. Due to problems in North America, Evil Geniuses announced they were leaving League of Legends and sold their place in the league to Winterfox. In 2019, EG returned to the NA LCS with the acquisition of the Echo Fox franchise slot, bringing the brand back after a 5-year hiatus. They became LCS champions for the first time in the spring LCS 2022 season. Building on their potential in the summer of 2021, Evil Geniuses took a midleiner from Jojopyun Academy to replace Jiizuke, and Vulcan was acquired from Cloud9 to replace Svenskeren. Inspired, formerly of Rogue in Europe, joined the team as the new forester. With only two members left on the Summer 2021 roster, Evil Geniuses attracted attention at the Lock-In 2022 tournament, going undefeated in their group and beating Golden Guardians and Cloud9 in the playoffs. In the finals, Evil Geniuses faced Team Liquid, who beat them 3-0.

Evil Geniuses was considered one of the best teams in the league, but three weeks later they found themselves in 8th place. In the second half of the split, the team performed much better, finishing in 4th place with a score of 9-9 and securing a spot in the top playoff. Evil Geniuses lost by a narrow margin to Team Liquid in a series of 5 games, leaving EG relegated to the losers' grid. From there, they beat FlyQuest 3-1, Cloud9 3-0, Team Liquid 3-0 and eventually 100 Thieves 3-0 in the grand final to become the 5th team to ever win the LCS championship. They also earned a slot at MSI 2022. The MSI itself for Evil Geniuses came out pretty good. Coming out of the group in second place, EG began to battle it out in the Rumble stage, which they had already finished in fourth place. The playoffs themselves were not very good. After losing to Royal Never Give Up 3-0 in the semifinals, Evil Geniuses went home, finishing 3-4 at MSI 2022.

100 Thieves started this split pretty well. Having beaten TSM in the first game day, the guys gained more confidence, before the meeting with Evil Geniuses, but in the second game day they were trampled. Finished 100 Thieves match, against Dignitas, which won without problems, thus went to the score 2-1, at the end of the first game week. The guys started the second week with a solid win, against Golden Guardians, thereby going to a score of 3-1. At the end of the week, 100 Thieves met Cloud9, who beat the guys without much trouble, thus sending them to the fourth line, with a score of 3-2. At the beginning of the third week, 100 Thieves confidently beat Team Liquid, thus with a score of 4-2 began to challenge for second place together, with CLG. At the end of the week, 100 Thieves easily overcame Immortals, getting closer and closer to first place, but a loss at the start of week four against FlyQuest, dropped the guys to third place. At the end of the week, 100 Thieves faced CLG, who they beat with no problem, and due to Team Liquid's loss, 100 Thieves took second place in the overall standings. At the beginning of the fifth week, the guys easily defeated TSM, thus forming a series of two wins in a row. Today 100 Thieves will meet Evil Geniuses, which is quite difficult to beat.

100 Thieves (100T or 100) is an American cybersports organization created by the Call of Duty character "Nadeshot" and the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers team. On November 20, 2017, Nadeshot announced that the 100 Thieves would return to the world of cybersports as they earned a slot in the LCS franchise league. The organization had previously fielded a Call of Duty lineup before breaking up and was one of the new teams to join the newly created LCS Franchise League. Since then, they have been one-time LCS champions, two-time medalists, and one-time World Championship competitors.

The 100 Thieves had a pretty good spring split. After finishing third overall, 12-6, the boys made the playoffs. The playoff stage itself was interesting. After beating Cloud9 3-0 and then Team Liquid 3-2, the 100 Thieves advanced to the grand final via the top net. But all of those exploits were trampled by Evil Geniuses, who beat the guys 3-0, thereby taking their only slot at MSI 2022. Before the summer split, the organization did not make any lineup replacements.

For this match, we'll take the frags total over (24.5), handicap 2 (+6.5), and the duration of the map under 33 minutes.