The Agganis Arena roared to life as the home crowd screamed their approval for the NA team. Millions more were watching online. Final map, final series, final rounds. The pressure continued to mount at a fever pitch as the ELeague Boston Major victory swayed one way to another as both teams fought with every scrap of skill they could muster to close out the game. But in the end, Cloud 9 was playing better Counter-strike and the heroic efforts of Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs wasn’t enough as Cloud 9 won the Major and became the first NA team to win a Major in CS:GO history.

It was a miraculous victory considering the history of NA CS and the path that Cloud 9 had to do to get there. The current Cloud 9 roster is a team composed of a new generation of players. Four out of five of the players made their international debut into top class competitive CS:GO in 2016. Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip and Timothy “autimatic” Ta found their wings under Cloud 9. Will “RUSH” Wierzba debuted as an incredible entry-fragger when OpTic became a world class team. Tarik “tarik” Celik had been around in 2015 on CLG as their star player, but was never able to reach an international final until joining OpTic in 2016. The only true veteran is Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham, one of the all-time great AWPers of NA dating all the way back to IBuyPower in 2013. The current iteration was formed soon after Cloud 9 collapsed at the Krakow Major 2017 and the OpTic team had collapsed. Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert was benched and Michale “shroud” Grzesiek stepped down leaving room for both Tarik and RUSH to join the team.

The new roster was incredibly skilled on paper, but no one could figure out how the roles of the team could be configured as they had multiple overlapping roles between the players. In the end tarik took the in-game leadership role from Stewie2K and RUSH took over the supportive roles. As a team they were able net multiple LAN results in the last quarter of 2017 with top fours at: DreamHack Montreal, ESL New York, ELeague 2017, and IEM Oakland. Their final event of 2017 had them lose out in the group stages of ECS Season 4. Tarik had proven himself as an in-game leader and entry-fragger to the team. Autimatic stayed consistently good. RUSH had adapted to his new supportive roles easily. The only problems in the team in terms of fragging power were now Stewie2K and Skadoodle. Stewie2K had shifted his role from entry-fragger and space creator to playing more on the wings. Skadoodle had been hit-and-miss since 2015 and now found his most impact as a supportive end AWPer who controlled map space and a postplant/clutch player.

In terms of experience, the only player among the five to ever reach the playoffs of a Major was tarik when he had been playing with CLG in 2016. This is a critical point as Majors bring a kind of pressure that is immeasurable compared to any other tournament in the circuit as they are the most prestigious and important events of the calendar year. We could even see this pressure eat away at Cloud 9 in the early stages of the Legends stage.

In their first two maps of the Swiss System they drew G2 and Space Soldiers and lost 8-16 and 13-16. With their group score 0-2, one more loss would have eliminated them from the Major. At the brink of elimination, Cloud 9 faced their fears and became all the stronger for it. They made a comeback as they beat Virtus.Pro, Astralis, and Vega to make it out of the group stages.

The first leg of the tournament had completed and now the team played in their first ever Major playoffs (barring tarik). The team they had to play was G2, a team that had comprehensively beat them in their first bo1 of the Major. G2 had looked to be one of the most in-form teams of the event as they cleared out of the Swiss Groups with a 3-0 record, though the competition they faced wasn’t particularly stiff with wins over Liquid with a standin and QBF. On top of that, G2 was filled with experienced veterans. Where Cloud 9 had four of their five players new to the playoffs, four of the five G2 players had already won a Major before. G2 never got into the server while Cloud 9 continued their incredible form they showed from the end of the group stages. Everyone elevated their level. Tarik, autimatic, and RUSH were already consistent factors for the team, but Stewie2K and Skadoodle seemed to have found their form when they were star players.

In the semifinals, Cloud 9 played against SK, one of the favorites to win the tournament despite having Joao “felps” Vasconcellos as a standin. Again it was a mismatch in experience. SK were two time Major winners, this was the first time any of Cloud 9 had ever reached the semifinals of a Major. On top of that Cloud 9 made a mistake in the veto phase according to their coach Soham “Valens” Chowdhury. They had planned to ban cobblestone and float nuke to get a favorable map draw, but the mistake meant that they had to play SK’s cobblestone and mirage. Despite that mistake, Cloud 9 were still able to beat SK 2-1. The critical victory came on the first map where Cloud 9 comprehensively beat SK on the T-side of the map. They lost cobblestone as expected, but the final map was inferno which was one of the reasons as to why the SK lineup with felps had ended. SK were unable to get going on the map and Cloud 9 made it to the finals.

In the finals, Cloud 9 played against FaZe, the favorite of the tournament. The finals had eight of the ten players be in their first ever Major finals. Only GuardiaN and Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer had ever been in Major finals before. The pressure was immense, though the matchup itself favored FaZe. The last three times Cloud 9 had met FaZe, Cloud 9 were rinsed out of the games. They had only succeeded in getting to double digits once and every other time it had been a categorical defeat.

But this was an all new Cloud 9. Every player had hit their peak and it wasn’t just Cloud 9’s players that were feeling the pressure, the opposing FaZe side had as well. Finn “karrigan” Andersen, Havard “rain” Nygaard, and Nikola “NiKo” Kovac were all new to the Major stages. On top of that karrigan had shown that he could crumble under the pressure of high stakes matches as a caller of the team.

The maps were Mirage, Overpass, and Inferno. Mirage was a close affair that became a battle of the AWPers. Everyone on Cloud 9 except Stewie2K turned up to play. Skadoodle in particular had a return of form and had an electrifying battle with GuardiaN as the two of them traded rounds creating highlight clips with their AWP. In the end FaZe were able to close it out. With the first map secured for FaZe, it looked to be a potential 2-0 finish for FaZe. They had dominated Cloud 9 in every other outing on the map. Instead the T-side of FaZe was lackluster and NiKo in particular didn’t show up at all. FaZe were able to prolong the game on the Ct-side of the map giving critical time for NiKo to warm up, but Cloud 9 were able to secure the map and get to the final map.

The final map on inferno was a rollercoaster. FaZe had built up a lead on their T-side 14-9. But Cloud 9 were able to win the force and from their got to a double AWP setup with utility. FaZe played slow, wasting nades to gain map control that wasn’t being contested. Because of that Cloud 9 could hold their nades and drain the clock down and forcing FaZe into painful crossfires that favored the Cloud 9 side. The game ended on a double overtime and even though Cloud 9 as a team and players were firing on all cylinders, the incredible skill of GuardiaN kept them alive, but it wasn’t enough. Cloud 9 overcame it all as their four star players each turned up in tandem to save the game.

In total, Cloud 9 were at the edge of the cliff as this Major started. They were down 0-2 in the Groups Stage, but were able to make it out. They then played the three best teams at the tournament and took them all down. It was an incredible run of form that showed the latent potential of Cloud 9 when everyone on the team was unleashed. With that victory they become the first team from NA to ever win a Major in CS:GO history and should this form continue, they have the ability to become the best team in the world.