Vorborg: "This will be the best season EG has shown in a while"

The Danish coach gave some insight into the Blueprint project and the team's expectations ahead of the BLAST Premier Spring Groups.

Evil Geniuses have been underwhelming since falling from grace in 2021 and further tanking in 2022, but started to show some resurgence under the leadership of Sanzhar "⁠neaLaN⁠" Iskhakov and Daniel "⁠Vorborg⁠" Vorborg near the end of the year. This offseason they made further changes, removing Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov in favor of EG Black's AWPer Jerric "⁠wiz⁠" Jiang.

BLAST Premier Spring Groups is now a chance for Evil Geniuses to continue the upward trajectory that they were on after last season's roster changes. With some of the other teams in attendance perhaps not fully warmed up for the tournament, this could be a perfect opportunity for the North American roster to spring a surprise.

Before their campaign, HLTV spoke to Vorborg about the Blueprint project and their chances at the upcoming tournaments.

You've been in EG for almost half a year now as head coach after leaving CPH Flames. How has the overall experience been?

It's been a good experience, a lot of new stuff. I have been in Flames for almost six years, so there have been a lot of new things and having to also work with an international team instead of a Danish team. I think a lot of the players at Copenhagen Flames had the same view of the game, so I've been presented with more ways of looking at the game now, and I think we spent the first season trying to figure that out, and then spending the offseason making sure that we have a system that fits everyone.

You came in after the Blueprint project was announced, was that a selling point of the team for you?

Yeah, it was definitely one of the reasons. I have always given many chances to young players in Copenhagen Flames, so I've been in the process of trying to scout players many times. Now having access to practice and official games with voice comms, to be able to talk to the players and their coaches personally and really get a good insight definitely makes it a lot easier to find the next good talent. So of course I am hoping that EG will keep recruiting some of the best talent around.

How is it working with such an unorthodox approach? Do you think teams will copy the idea in the future?

I see there are a lot of organizations with academy teams, which are kind of similar. EG of course have gone the extra mile by having two very competitive rosters. Right now people are mostly closing down academy projects, as everyone is expecting a rough financial year, so it's probably not going to be a priority for many teams. But in the future, I expect to see some more elaborate youth projects at every organization.

How much of a say in the process do you get as the coach of the main team?

I have a lot of say on who gets to join the main roster for tournaments, but when it comes to actually recruiting I just give my opinion and that's it because I already have a full-time job trying to make sure we have the best possible shot at tournaments like BLAST. I voice my opinion but I don't spend enough time on it to have the proper opinion and be the guy to make those decisions. I have a lot of faith in both our coaches and also valens, who is running the entire show.

Do the three teams have a lot of interaction with each other and yourself especially?

Personally, I've met almost all of them, except the new guys. I talk more with the coaches, and I see their practices and officials, so when players improve and we want to try them out I start talking with them, getting to know them, and getting opinions from their coach. We also practice against each other when we are in NA, it is some of the best practice we can get.

It also helps when we want to train something specific, let's say we have a weakness playing against aggressive CT sides, then we can ask one of the other two teams to play very aggressively against us. Then, once in a while, EG gets everyone together for a big team dinner, and whenever that happens it's always a lot of fun.

Turning attention to the event at hand, you come in after parting ways with CeRq and adding wiz to the lineup. How did these moves develop?

I think at the end of last year we evaluated the roster, if we want to make any changes. In the beginning, we looked at what our options were, we didn't necessarily need to make changes, but we started to look at the Blueprint players by playing Cash Cups with wiz, jeorgesnorts, and Walco.

I think for CeRq, specifically, he had a rough time finding consistency. We definitely saw improvement from him, but for the entire team, we saw it as a step in the right direction to have a more consistent player in wiz. CeRq's highs were very high, but his lows were also very low, and I also think he had a rough time trying to reinvent himself in the team.

I still think we can see a very strong CeRq in the future, I'm hoping he can show that on a team. wiz is also a lot younger, he is like a sponge soaking in all the information, trying to fit in every way he can to benefit the team. Now it's just about how he will perform on the big stage.

So wiz will remain as a permanent member of the main roster?

At least for the foreseeable future, we don't have any plans to play with any other AWPer. But we will be continuously evaluating the roster.

Considering you now have an EU spot on the roster, did you look outside of the EG teams to replace CeRq?

We evaluated every single spot on the team as I think that is the only responsible thing to do, and we looked at a lot of EU players. But I've felt that where we were with the team, we had a very short amount of time together, like three or four months, so the way we felt that it either needs to be an incredible talent or a player that we are 100% confident that he is ready to play at top 10 or top 5 in the world. Also, I would say the biggest weakness of our team is we lacked ownership and initiative, so it also had to be a player that could solve one of these core issues for us.

So if there was a guy who was really good individually, but we didn't expect him to take initiative, then we wouldn't make that move. In the end, we didn't feel there was such a candidate that would be interested in our project at the same time. There are some great EU AWPers and we could have gone for some of them, but we believe that wiz has huge potential and that he has a lot of things we are looking for in an AWPer even with the lack of experience. We are maybe taking a bit of a risk, but we are hoping it's a risk that pays off in the end.

You have a tough opening game at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, playing against Heroic. What are your expectations for this tournament?

It's gonna be tough for sure, I mean BLAST is basically the top teams in the world. Last season I think our level was around the top 20, as we lost just one game to teams outside the top 20, but also won just one against teams in the top 20, so I'm still cautious about the expectations.

I'm pleasantly surprised with how fast we are improving during the offseason, though. I also don't like to set result-based expectations, it's more about how we play, and if we play how we want to and don't fault under pressure, I'm actually feeling quite hopeful.

Straight after this you go into Katowice, and then EPL, so the season is starting soon. What are your general goals for the first half of the year?

I think Katowice for us will be a tough one, as we don't have the amount of practice we would like in the new system. So it's more about gaining experience and still working out the kinks and flaws of the system in a learning experience. But if we continue on the path we are now, for EPL and the Major cycle I want to see an EG team that is competitive against the tier-one teams, top 15 teams, and overall be a lot more competitive than what you have seen from EG over the past two years.

So yeah, I think this will be the best season EG has shown in a while. I'm not ready to say we will win tournaments, I think that's more of a goal for the second half of the year.