One of the biggest developments in the Valorant 2023 offseason was around the Valorant Champions 2023 winning team: Evil Geniuses. It was reported that Evil Geniuses has allowed its starting roster to pursue other offers or take a pay cut to stay with the organization.
Amidst all the managerial issues plaguing Evil Geniuses and its many esports teams, fans and the Valorant community thought the Valorant Champions 2023 were stuck in an alleged "contract jail."
However, it was recently revealed that two of the strongest Evil Geniuses players — Ethan "Ethan" Arnold and Max "Demon1" Mazanov —have been picked up by NRG for the upcoming season.
NRG Picks Up Demon1 & Ethan for VCT 2024 Season
NRG has one of the strongest teams competing in Valorant esports next year in 2024. It initially retained these following three players:
Austin "crashies" Roberts
Victor "Victor" Wong
Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen
Following this, the team went ahead and picked up two more powerhouse performers from the Evil Geniuses Valorant team. NRG signed Ethan and Demon1, rounding out its roster.
It wrote on 23rd December, "Villain era never looked so good. THIS IS NRG VALORANT 2024."
Interestingly, hours before this official announcement, Demon1 tweeted, "Holy s**t im free," with a GIF of a contract being signed. This clearly indicated that the North American star had signed a new contract with another team, which was still shrouded in mystery at that point.
Meanwhile, Ethan tweeted, "3rd time’s the charm. Let’s get to work, can’t wait for next year."
Evil Geniuses Valorant Team for 2024
Currently, according to Liquipedia, the following players are still shown on the active roster of Evil Geniuses:
Kelden "Boostio" Elric Pupello
Alexander "jawgemo" Tepchhatraridhi Mor
Corbin "C0M" Daniel Lee
Kyle "ScrewFace" Jensen
It is unclear if the four players will also transfer to other teams before the onset of the new season.
Evil Geniuses has been going through a tumultuous time recently. On 2nd November, the organization engaged in a spree of layoffs, letting go of multiple employees, and it also disbanded its Dota 2 roster. According to a report by esports journalist Richard Lewis, Evil Geniuses is looking to cut down on its operations further.
Right on cue, on 20th November, League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) of North America (NA) released a statement about the plans for 2024 and beyond. The president of esports at Riot Games, Josh Needham, noted that Evil Geniuses will no longer be part of the LCS ecosystem in 2024.
In the statement that was posted on social media channels, Needham mentioned that the decision was "mutual" between the teams (Evil Geniuses and Golden Guardians) and the league.