LOUD’s Saadhak believes EG’s blunder in agent select led to historic VCT beatdown

Evil Geniuses did end up making history in their VCT Americas match against reigning world champions LOUD on April 24, but not in the way anyone expected after how the series started. And according to LOUD’s in-game leader, EG’s crucial mistake in the agent select phase was the nail in the coffin.

In a match that most fans expected LOUD to run away with, EG came out firing on LOUD’s pick of Split and stunned the No. 1 ranked Americas team 13-3 on their own map pick, handing LOUD their largest map loss of the year so far. EG came just a few rounds shy of handing LOUD an unprecedented 2-0 loss on Haven but still had a chance to close out the series on Pearl.

But EG didn’t win on Pearl. In fact, they became the first team in the world to lose a map 13-0 during the VCT 2023 season. Following the match, which was equal parts hard to watch and impossible to look away from, LOUD’s in-game leader Matias “Saadhak” Delipetro said EG were doomed from the start of Pearl.

According to Saadhak’s post-match interview on the Portuguese stream, as translated by Dot Esports, LOUD were anticipating EG to continue playing Max “Demon1” Mazanov on Jett and were expecting him to continue using the Operator proficiently. But EG stuck Demon1 on Killjoy instead, and Saadhak said LOUD felt more “comfortable” after that pick because they were able to take more space without the threat of Jett being there.

With Fade instead of Jett, EG were unable to take the same amount of space as LOUD could with their Jett manned by aspas. EG ran double-initiator, double-controller on Pearl in the recent past with Demon1 on Killjoy but barely squeaked out a win against winless KRÜ.

Following this missed opportunity for EG, the likelihood of them making the playoffs seems slim-to-none now with a 1-4 record. EG almost certainly have to win their next four matches just to have a chance at reaching the playoffs or Masters Tokyo.