Clarification on C9

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the Cloud9 fans for being so amazing to me from day one. They made me feel welcome throughout my entire experience here, and I’m more than grateful for that. Coming in from complexity, I knew this was going to be a whole new beast, as far as challenges go. Joining a championship winning team was a lot of pressure in itself, but the fact that I was also going to be leading this team was more stressful than I could have ever imagined. I went into every event thinking this could easily be my last event if we suck or don't perform to the standard the players or fans have set. After 3 events with disappointing results, I think myself and the team realized that I wasn't the right fit for this roster. The way they wanted me to call and the way I wanted to call continued to clash. Lack of practice haunted us more and more and eventually, I think the players just wanted to go back to their old style.



Doesn’t take a genius to know that it takes time to create a system that all 5 players can be comfortable with. What most people probably don't realize is how difficult it can really be to combine your system with someone else's with little to no time in a practice server and repetitions. I've played 47 maps with this roster in 47 days and in that entire time; we've had 5 days of real practice. Every scrim/practice outside of that has either been for matches (warm up before official games) or practice after we get knocked out of an event. Even counting those practice days, at best, we had 10 days of practice. This is all to say that winning under these conditions vs. tier one teams or teams that have been together for a lot longer was always going to be hard. Ultimately, I think it just came down to a difference in mentality as far as how the players like to play vs. how I liked to play. My overall goal was to create a system in which all players would eventually gel with a lot of structure around everything we ran with everybody being comfortable in their specific roles. Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close to being able to implementing any type of system due to lack of time and practice.



To my teammates, I'm thankful to everyone I had the pleasure of playing side by side with; Tarik, Tim, Will, Tyler, Soham and David. I learned so much from each and every one of you, in and out of game and those experiences will never be forgotten. It was a short time here but I’m happy that these players gave me the chance and believed in me to lead this team to wins. I'm sorry that i let you guys down. I did everything in my power with the limited time we had and I hope that at the least, you guys learned things from me too.



This message might come off as an excuse for our results or my failures here, but to be honest, I’ve accepted that i failed here, regardless of the circumstances. The things I’m taking away from my time here definitely make this whole experience worth it. I don't really know what's next for me, other than going back home and spending time with family & friends. I'm down right now but I have a good feeling about the future and I’m positive things will work out for me. I wish nothing but the best for Cloud9 CSGO and the organization in general. They gave me an opportunity I always wanted. I just wish I had more time to prove what this lineup can do at its best. Nonetheless, thank you for believing in me.



On a side note, CSGO needs a longer off season. 2-3 months is the perfect amount of time. This will allow teams to be able to re-invent themselves and prepare a lot more for the upcoming tournaments. More importantly, it will allow for teams who make roster changes to actually practice with that roster and come into tournaments with complete confidence. Every event i went to with Cloud9 was a disaster in terms of preparation due to lack of time. I know a lot of other teams are struggling with the same issues so I figured I’d just point it out.



I will be attending ECS with this roster for the last time with Tarik as the in game leader. In the meantime, I think they will be trying out replacements for me and as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to be taking a bit of a break to re evaluate my future.



Thanks for reading this essay!



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