Last week, Cloud9:s star rifler Spencer ”Hiko” Martin decided to leave the team.

In a Youtube clip he later expressed one reason for him departing was the lack of distinct roles within the squad, something team captain Jordan ”n0thing” Gilberg recognizes.

– We had chemistry and role issues and just assumed practicing more hours would fix it automatically, he says.

During a crazy transfer week on the North American scene, the most noticeable departure was Spencer ”Hiko” Martin leaving his long time position as rifler in top team Cloud9. After disappointing at DreamHack Winter, despite having competed and practiced in Europe for well over a month before the major, his team failed to make it out of the groups. Now, one week after the departure of his teammate, captain Jordan ”n0thing” Gilbert expresses his feelings about the loss.

– It always sucks to lose a teammate or make a change. I’ve always been a proponent of sticking together and fixing problems through communication and making people aware of things. In this case though, Spencer felt things had become stale in those regards and he just wanted a change rather than attempting to mend anything further. It’s unfortunate, but its also probably for the better if he didn’t feel comfortable on our team anymore.

Were struggling with player roles

According to n0thing, the team had been trying to work around chemistry issues for quite some time and so they weren’t completely blindsided by Hiko’s decision to move on.

– It was somewhat surprising, but we have dealt with some of these ”team” problems for a bit now. We were struggling a bit with defining roles between having multiple lurkers, different strat callers, different entry fraggers… At a certain point I think we got a bit lost between all the changes and didn’t know where our strengths were. What kept is strong for so long was our out of game chemistry, but eventually that was overrun by in game problems.

”Played too much – fixed too little”

In retrospect, the captain hints that the long stint playing in Europe might have actually worsened the problem within the team instead of fixing it.

– I think we ”over bootcamped” before DreamHack. Essentially I think we played too much while fixing too little. It’s easy to think your team is doing well when you are playing in a practice environment and not every team is punishing you. We had chemistry- and role issues that we never really fixed for whatever reason, we just assumed practicing more hours would fix it automatically, I guess. I don’t think DreamHack alone was the reason Hiko felt compelled to make this change. From the sounds of it this was just a piece of Hiko losing faith in our roster, but not the whole cake.

”Will bring a solidified sniper role”

After Hiko left, he also talked about how Cloud9 were lacking a dedicated AWP:er, a position that Sean Gares had to reluctantly fill at times. With the new recruit, AWP:er Shahzeb ”Shahzam” Khan, they’ve adapted to the current meta where aggressive snipers getting entry frags could turn a whole game around.

– We expect him to bring a solidified sniper role that we haven’t ever consistently had, which will allow us to change the way we create our setups. I think you may see more double AWP setups and some more dynamic CT sides in general. That’s the hope at least. Everything else will probably develop organically over time after we learn more about Shahzebs’ comfort zone.

”We addressed the controversy of Shahzam”

But the new recruit also comes with baggage, admitting he’s had some controversial exchanges within the community in the past. Cloud9 addressed the issue before bringing him on the team and n0thing doesn’t seem all to worried about his new AWP:er.

– The controversy of Shahzam was addressed and we basically let him know that Cloud9 doesnt condone any unprofessional behavior and we uphold certain expectations for how, when and where we express our opinions. To be honest, he seems like a good kid, so I assume most of those previous issues are nothing to worry about moving forward. He’s a nice guy, a great sniper, and a motivated young individual. So far I haven’t noticed anything toxic like people say.

”Will try to keep the pressure minimal”

With only one month before the MLG X-Games tournament in Aspen between January 23rd and 25th, the team is in a bit of a ”Maikelele situation”, where Ninjas in Pyjamas broke in their new sniper only three weeks before DreamHack Winter. Now they’re working hard to get Shahzam up to speed before his first big tournament with the team.

– We will try to focus on getting him developed on as many maps as we can without getting too spread thin. We can’t do much about the time we have, except use it. As far as expectations, we’re going to try to keep the pressure minimal across the board so as to help people feel comfortable for this initial change. Regardless, the pressure is always there from each individual placing it on himself but thats a separate type of pressure.