Nine-time Evo Champion Justin Wong joins BASILISK

North American esports organisation BASILISK have announced the signing of legendary FGC player Justin ‘JWong‘ Wong.

The nine-time Evolution Championship Series (Evo) champion will be leading the organisation’s newly formed FGC division, recruiting players and developing events for the community.

Widely regarded as one of the cross-genre GOATs in fighting games, Wong will leverage BASILISK’s data analytics to scout and train the next generation of FGC pros, according to a release.

BASILISK focuses on emphasising scientific causes, having recently promoted partnerships with The Planetary Society and Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM) to create a bridge between renowned scientific institutions and gamers. As a result, Wong will also be creating science crossover content for the new FGC team.

Justin Wong, upon joining BASILISK, said: “Math is super important to fighting games. I’m excited to join science’s esports team. I’m passionate about finding promising players with a positive mentality and shaping them into the next big thing.

“I want to see somebody else in the spotlight after me and help them reach their potential. If we can discover the next world champion, that would be fantastic.”

Founded by Christopher Bothur and Hans Kassie in 2020, BASILISK was born with the goal of combining data-driven approaches and cognitive bias research with competitive gaming to foster scientific curiosity and inspire young people.

Having a different identity compared to many of the esports teams in the space, BASILISK has been focusing on strategy-heavy game titles such as StarCraft II (SC2), Magic: The Gathering, and Chess, with FGC being the latest addition.

In particular, the organisation has recently won the SC2 Esports World Cup (EWC) Championship last month with Joona ‘Serral’ Sotala, earning 1000 club championship points. This puts BASILISK currently in the top 16 clubs at EWC.