Where were you when Cloud9 was kill?

Me? I was at BLAST Premier World Final in Abu Dhabi. More specifically, I was in a pool sipping on a whiskey sour, giggling to myself because sh1ro’s move to Spirit had just been announced and I knew the so-called ‘superteam’ was well and truly dead. Of course, it had died months prior when it was announced that sh1ro had benched himself, but now it was *real*, and that was really, really funny. 

You see, as much as I may have enjoyed 2021 NAVI, on the other hand, I really didn’t enjoy the ride of Gambit in the online era, and I also didn’t enjoy the subsequent era of bottling that came from the Russian team after Counter-Strike returned to LAN. There’s no room for bottlers in my enjoyment of the beautiful game, and given that I realised quite quickly that that’s all sh1ro and Ax1Le are, there was an unrivalled joy to the so-far disappointing superteam losing any chance of success.

Months later, the departures are no longer limited to sh1ro. In fact, so many players have left that the core of that superteam no longer exists, and it begs the question — why doesn’t Cloud9 just disband already?

Cursed from the beginning 

We probably should’ve known that this Cloud9 team was doomed when Ax1Le was unable to attend the first stage of IEM Cologne 2023 thanks to VISA issues. Of course, the fact that they still managed to reach the playoffs appeared to be a positive sign of things to come, but his absence was always a bad omen.

The result would end up being their best placement as a five-man roster, unless you count winning RES Eastern European Masters 2023 and BLAST Premier Fall Showdown 2023 — which, to be clear, we do not.

The tournaments that followed Cologne would see them bow out from Gamers8 in 5th-8th place and from IEM Sydney in 9th-12th place, as it happened, that would be sh1ro’s last tournament on the team. 

Oh, and most embarrassingly of all they managed to finish in 21st-28th place at ESL Pro League Season 18. Given how easy it is to make the playoffs at these bloated Pro League tournaments, that one is unforgivable. 

At this point, we should also mention that electroNic was IGLing the team during this time, something that should never have been a factor. People may have (wrongly) believed that the former NAVI player was a competent IGL, but given that he only managed to guide NAVI to a single trophy in 2022 despite being on par with FaZe for most of their dominant run, we always knew that he was simply just another star naively believing his own hype and failing at leading.

He also managed to make sdy look useless, and given how strong he was on Monte, that might be his greatest sin.

Playing without an AWPer

It didn’t take long for Cloud9 to find a replacement for sh1ro, but the issue with that was that they didn’t actually replace him at all. Instead, Cloud9 looked towards Boombl4, offering the Major winner a route back to tier one after his controversial exit from NAVI in 2022. 

On one hand, this was a good thing, electroNic was obviously not a good IGL and Boombl4 had a decent track record. On the other, this move would only serve to patch up one hole while opening up another - Cloud9 would now be playing without an AWPer, and the results of this were… interesting. 

With the Russian team incapable of effectively countering the AWPers of their opponents, teams with competent AWPers suddenly became supercharged. Even teams with sub-par AWPers were now a much deadlier prospect for Cloud9 to come up against.

They were kept afloat for a while at the beginning of CS2 thanks to electroNic rolling back the years and putting up superstar numbers once again, but that purple patch was short-lived and the team soon returned to their AWPless mediocrity.

Constantly surrounded by conversations of whether veteran HObbit or underperforming Ax1Le would need to depart to make room for a new AWPer, the team would then have to watch as sh1ro left to join Spirit and would go on to win IEM Katowice 2024 in his first tournament with his new team. 

The most confusing part of this transfer wasn’t that Cloud9 had willingly strengthened a rival that already looked like a threatening prospect for 2024, instead, it was that they didn’t then turn to the AWPer Spirit was replacing, ArtFr0st. 

ArtFr0st is a competent AWPer who ended up being the unfortunate loser when his team couldn’t help but take advantage of a better player’s availability, it’s a similar story to that we heard with nawwk and NIP years before when the Swedish organisation signed device, but an instantaneous move for the Swede was less obvious at that time. However, in this instance, Cloud9 filling sh1ro’s spot with ArtFr0st seemed obvious - so why was he left to fall down to a PARIVISION team that has achieved a grand total of nothing?

When you consider that the alternative for Cloud9 was bouncing between HObbit and Boombl4 as makeshift AWPers, the previous question becomes utterly baffling. 

More departures

Fast forward to the first Major of CS2, the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, and Cloud9 looked relatively strong as they managed to make it to the playoffs in the Royal Arena. There was even talk that they may have been able to go further, but let’s face it, those conversations were spawned from the perceived weakness of Vitality, not the perceived strength of Cloud9.

The calls for them to drop a player in favour of an AWPer still persisted, but the team had proved they could at least be competitive on a top-eight basis thanks to their strong if not mildly inconsistent, rifle core.

And then it all fell apart.

Just two weeks after the end of the Major, Virtus.pro surprised the entire Counter-Strike world as they announced the signing of electroNic. It was a move that genuinely came out of nowhere and at that point, it was obvious that the Cloud9 project was well and truly dead.

Still, we didn’t expect HObbit and Perfecto to then both be benched just a week later.

With just two players remaining from their ‘Russian superteam’, one of whom hadn’t even been a part of the original team, Cloud9 were now left in the same place they had been after the collapse of their ELEAGUE Boston Major winning roster - and just like back then, it wasn’t going to get any easier.

Rumoured troubles in the transfer market

Given the size of Cloud9 as an organisation and the fact that the team would be retaining the services of Ax1Le and Boombl4, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it wouldn’t take long for the North American organisation to replace its outgoing players.

However, if you believe the likes of harum1, that’s not exactly how it’s panning out.

The first worrying bit of news for Cloud9 came when harum1 tweeted that zorte had declined an offer from Cloud9. 

zorte is one of the best AWPers in an over-saturated market for Russian AWPers, so it's no surprise they tried to sign him, although it does raise the question as to why they waited so long to try and sign him.

Still, I guess that zorte would rather play with the man Cloud9 ousted to form their failed superteam, nafany. That’s a little slice of irony I’ll be enjoying for a long time.

The second worrying rumour surrounding Cloud9’s attempt to rebuild their roster is one involving a former member of their team, interz. interz was part of the team when they originally rose up the rankings as part of Gambit, but was eventually benched in favour of buster.

A move so blatantly sideways that I’m still baffled why they chose to make the change almost eighteen months later. 

Now that cloud9 are in the dumps they’re apparently looking at bringing him back to the organisation. Eighteen months ago I might’ve said this was a good idea, and every team needs a player like interz, however, one with ambitions as high as Cloud9’s should probably aim for a better version of him. 

interz hasn’t exactly had a great time since leaving Cloud9 his only team has been TSM, where he currently finds himself on the bench. But at least he may soon have his old mate Ax1Le back. Good for him. 

Just disband

Sadly, Clodu9 CEO Jack Etienne has already made it clear that Cloud9 won’t disband - something they eventually chose to do after multiple failed rebuilds and a laughable ‘Colossus; project. 

But let’s be real, does anyone see the point in not disbanding?

When all you have left is a star player who hasn’t performed like a star for over a year and an IGL who doesn’t have a team to lead, you’re not doing too well. Add in the fact that it seems they’re not exactly going to be signing a new team brimming with talent, should they not do what they did in the past and disband their team, sell off the valuable assets and wait for the perfect time to reappear? 

CS is a worse place without Cloud9 in it, their history in the game is simply too rich, but this team has gone from hopeful to hopeless and is now a comedy of epic proportions - but I’m no longer entertained by their misfortune.