Evil Geniuses are the 2023 World Champions of Valorant

After an explosive final, the players in the Evil Geniuses are the new Valorant world champions. They won Paper Rex in a perfectly controlled second leg that allowed the United States to win the title in spite of all the predictions.

Evil Geniuses got off to a very poor start to the 2023 season. The team was eliminated early from LOCK//INThe team went on to win the opening tournament of the VCT, narrowly qualifying for the American league play-offs. From there, they racked up upsets after upsets to win, once again by a hair's breadth, a place in the play-offs. Masters Tokyo. It was in Japan that the team revealed its full potential, climbing as high as the final against Fnatic. A final they lost, but PotterAt the time, coach Evil Geniuses promised with anger and conviction that her team would win the world championships. And she kept her promise.

The Evil Geniuses players arrived more ready than ever and made mincemeat of all their opponents. They only stumbled against Paper Rex in the final of the winner's bracket. They had to beat LOUD, the champions of 2022to meet Paper Rex and book their place in the Grand Final. Before the match, the crowd seemed already convinced that it would be the Singapore team that would win.

The final was extremely close on each of the maps. The two teams alternated between moments of grace and unexpected turnarounds. Even though Paper Rex only managed to win one map, the team was far from undeserving. And in particular Jinggg who put in a solid and impressive performance.

But all his efforts are nothing compared to the incomparable talents of Demon1, Boostio and Jawgemo. While he had been rather discreet in Defence, it was once in Attack that Demon1 revealed himself with no fewer than 19 kills in 8 rounds. The frags were always spectacular, whether in the speed of execution or the improbable trajectories of his Jett, even dodging a Raze rocket almost at point-blank range thanks to an updraft.

BoostioThe second map of BO5, Ascent, was a real highlight. Always in the right place at the right time to thwart Paper Rex's entries, he produced a very impressive Ace on Lotus, as well as an ultimate kill from Raze on a target in mid-air. Jawgemo was the terror of Lotus. At the wheel of his Raze, he scored no less than 3 doubles, 2 trebles and 2 quadruples in a single map, while taking first blood on 7 occasions.

That said, the real strength of Evil Geniuses, over and above their individual talents, is the way in which they know how to both create chaos with their skills, than remaining calm, precise and formidable when they in turn are immersed in smoke while rockets rain down from everywhere and they are cornered by opposing walls. By trying to break the organised game of Fnatic, the tournament's public enemy number 1, the Evil Geniuses have finally created a meta where everything can quickly go either way.

However, this style of play could be under threat, if we are to believe early patch notes for Patch 7.04. In it, the developers of Valorant talk directly about their desire to reduce situations where players find themselves overloaded with information and possible choices when faced with a deluge of skills.

However, the Evil Geniuses have taken advantage of the possibilities offered by the game and made it one of their strengths. They truly deserve their title of Valorant Champions 2023.