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Emily RandESPN
After a rough 0-2 performance last weekend, with a particularly grueling loss to Counter Logic Gaming, Evil Geniuses have officially signed mid laner Greyson “Goldenglue” Glimer to the team, who will start on the LCS lineup over Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro as reported by ESPN’s Jacob Wolf and confirmed by the team.
“Both in scrims and a bit onstage we were seeing some stagnation with the team,” Evil Geniuses’ LCS Director Greg Kim said. “In spring we similarly had some struggles to start the split. Taking a look at the team and the roster we’ve built a lot of good bot lane synergy between [Tristan] ‘Zeyzal’ [Stidam] and [Bae] ‘Bang’ [Jun-sik] and Bang in particular is the best or one of the best AD carries in the LCS right now.”
At the beginning of the summer split, Evil Geniuses experimented with a seven-man lineup, swapping out top laner Colin “Kumo” Zhao for Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon after acquiring Huni in the most recent offseason, and bot laner Bang for Matthew “Deftly” Chen. Once the season began, EG stuck with their spring lineup of Kumo, Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, Jiizuke, Bang, and Zeyzal.
“Having had some of the experience with Huni and Deftly before the start of the season and seeing [the] Kumo and Jiizuke roster we took a look at our team and some of our issues around how we were playing,” Kim said. “We wanted to bring new strategic voices into the mix while also sit on some of the synergies we had already built.”
Kim cited both Goldenglue and Huni as strong voices that could add to the strength of EG’s bottom lane and jungle pressure from Svenskeren. Kim also stressed that Jiizuke has been helpful in team practices and discussions and this is in no way a reflection on his individual talent as a mid laner.
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“Part of it is just how we play as a team and as five,” Kim said. “I think both of the games this past weekend are a good example where we’re on some of the Jiizuke comfort picks like LeBlanc and Ekko and we struggle to close out the game despite having a hugely advantageous position. None of this is a knock on Jiizuke’s talent. What we wanted to shake up with our dynamic is switching up the shotcalling a bit or adding new voices to the shotcalling and seeing what shaking up the communication a bit and introducing new elements will do for the growth of our team.”
The Kumo/Bang and Huni/Deftly sides of the initial seven-man EG lineup were partially born of necessity due to the fact that Italian mid laner Jiizuke counts towards one of the two spots allotted for foreign players on an NA team. The addition of Goldenglue allows EG to field both Bang and Huni simultaneously, experimenting with another lineup permutation. According to Kim, it primarily allows for the team to see what Huni, who has a strong presence in the top lane and is vocal on all of his teams, will be able to add to their communication.
With Jiizuke in mid lane, the team gravitated towards a more split-push heavy style that made the most of pressure he could create in the side lanes. With Goldenglue and Huni, the team will likely have a more top-lane focused style with Bang and Zeyzal holding their own in the bot lane while Goldenglue helps empower Svenskeren.
“How can we connect better as a five-man team. Can Greyson step in and contribute to comms?” Kim said of the questions around Goldenglue’s inclusion on this lineup. “Playing to support other lanes versus playing to lane and playing to split-push, I think there’s a slight difference between Goldenglue and Jiizuke on that front and I think we were curious to see how that would play out in our team environment.”
Goldenglue recently parted ways with his former team, Golden Guardians, who picked up Tanner “Damonte” Damonte as their starting mid. In a Twitlonger, Goldenglue said he was open to both player and coaching positions.
“I’m not entirely sure what role I’ll be taking on next, but I do know that I’m going to give it my absolute 100%,” Goldenglue wrote in his statement. “This is the first time I’ve been a free agent in around 4~ years (since I left Ember LOL) and to be completely honest it’s very exciting but also equally terrifying. I hope I can find a place to grow and learn for the rest of Summer Split and also continue to develop myself both professionally and personally.”
Evil Geniuses had a short practice week and will face Team Liquid on Friday and Cloud9 on Saturday. Goldenglue has practiced with the team since Tuesday.
