It’s been almost six months since the ELEAGUE Boston Major. Cloud9’s miracle run is something that we’ll always remember as the first time a North American team won a Major. But the team has experienced multiple roster changes that has affected their results in a bad way. From Stewie and, succesively, Tarik leaving Cloud9 for MIBR (ex-SK), to multiple role changes, Cloud9 is far from repeating their Major run.

I’ll take a look at what Cloud9 did right and wrong during this post-major period because, even if mistakes were made, they did many positive things.

Right: Getting a dedicated IGL

North America is not a region known by their IGLs and that’s a clear disadvantage when facing teams from other regions. While many teams get some success from a semi-IGLing style, staying on the top 10 without a dedicated IGL is not even close to an easy task. Cloud9 particularly suffered from this on the first months after the Major, having underwhelming results on numerous events. After losing to TeamOne 2-1, the team hit an all-time low and both Skadoodle and Stewie lost faith on the team, the latter leaving days later.

Cloud9 lost a natural leader and desperately needed a change of air and they did changed. While many names were suggested by the community as possible changes for both Stewie and Skadoodle, the fans were surprised after hearing that Pujan “FNS” Mehta was the chosen one to take the IGL spot. But things didn’t work and they decided to kick him not so long after. While I don’t believe kicking him was the right decision, the team recognized that a dedicated IGL was a must for the team to come back to the top 10.

Things looked better after they got former Fnatic IGL Maikil “Golden” Selim took the IGL role and Martin “STYKO” Styk joined him as a stand-in. The lack of firepower may seem obvious but that’s not difficult to find in the current state of the scene. After Cloud9 gets a permanent fifth, they’ll have all the pieces to come back to the top.

Wrong: Keeping Skadoodle as a support awper

Like it or not, is not Skadoodle’s fault to be so absent in a lot of games. Despite being one of the top awpers worldwide he’s resigned to be a support awper. This is something that hold him back from his full potential and hurt the entire team’s result for a long time.

On the current meta, this is more than a disadvantage against any team. In a world where aggressive awpers are thriving, as a team you should secure that your awper uses his rifle to the maximum potential. Instead, the team decided to use him as an expensive black hole to their economy, doing so little for such a long time.

This is specially infuriating because it emotionally affected Skadoodle, considered by most people as the greatest AWPer that North America have. But, looking to the C9 Golden is proposing, this is probably going to change. Having Skadoodle as an aggressive awper is something needed to keep up with the rest of the teams.

Right: Letting Tarik Go

Most people will probably disagree with this statement but letting Tarik go was the right choice. While Tarik added a lot of firepower and kept the dream alive, he was responsible of keeping Cloud9 without a real IGL.

It’s understandable that he tried to make his style of IGLing work, after all it worked on the Major. But after many underwhelming tournaments it was obvious that it was more of a problem than a solution. He might be a good motivator but Cloud9 needed to restructure the roster urgently. Letting him go left the team as a blank page waiting for a talented IGL to write Cloud9’s future.

Wrong: The FNS clown-fiesta

The only thing more unfair than Skadoodle’s terrible role choice is FNS’ terrible time on the team. You may argue that FNS wasn’t enough for the team, but the fact is that they should’ve used him better for the price they paid for him.

According to FNS’ TwitLonger post-kicked:

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.

I understand that Cloud9 added FNS during a crucial time filled with events to participate in, leaving him with so little time to create the system they paid him to do. We should also add the fact that it was his first time playing a Tier 1 tournament with a real Tier 1 team, so the pressure was on him.

I’m not blaming the org, the team or Soham of not having enough time to practice. No one would have predicted Stewie leaving the team, so nothing was expected. What I can’t comprehend is the lack of compromise with FNS. Despite Tarik already having played with him before, it should’ve been known his way of work.

But it wasn’t the case, and according to rumours the rest of the team disagreed with his way of calling. Communication is key on CS:GO, but that’s not enough justification for such early kick.

BONUS: Who Should Be Cloud9’s Fifth?

Cromen

Adding cromen is an instant firepower bonus. He proved himself with FaZe so it’s not only a safe choice but a smart one as well. Probably the best choice if he’s willing to move to North America.

WARDELL

This might be a risky one, but WARDELL is the most promising AWPer from North America. Working under Steel’s leadership he has shined in a big way, helping Ghost to win against OpTic Gaming 2-1, destroying the likes of K0nfig and JUGI. This move will come at the expense of taking Skadoodle’s AWP, but I’m confident that he will do well as a support rifler.

Freakazoid + Cooper

This is probably the craziest choice I could think of and probably won’t happen, but the guys have done nothing else that surprise everyone on Swole Patrol. With no expectations or real sponsor, the semi-pro team has shown better results than many pro teams located in North America. Who knows what they’ll be capable of on Cloud9.

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