The Case of Cloud9

Cloud9 have for a long time been the NA hope and were close to securing themselves a spot in the top five as they were able to take down every team within their summer hot-streak, where they made three consecutive second place finishes at important tournaments with a lot of competition. As they attended the Cologne Major of 2015, their super-performance was a long gone shade and they subsequently were unable to even touch the teams they had previously beaten, sometimes with ease. In our rankings, they were only able to scratch the surface of the top ten and often fell below.

Something must have gone wrong. Some issues exist that just make it hard for Cloud9 to ever succeed on an international level again. Many of the professionals have mentioned them and actually the team itself has outlined them and pointed towards a solution. With the help of a recent offline match we will make an attempt to find them ourselves, as well as evaluate a reasonable solution. The subject of our analyses will be the quarter finals of the Global ESports Cup in Lithuania in which they had to go up against Team EnVyUs. You can watch it here.

What has gone right for them?



Fortunately for us, we can iterate this match chronologically if we want to find out what they did well, because C9 had a stellar CT halftime on Mirage, with a 12-3 score line. There are so many good plays within those 15 rounds, but after that, nothing, literally nothing has happened and they got shut down 16-13 by the Frenchmen.

Round 2 – Shroud is holding bomb site B with a Scout after a successful first pistol round. He spots the French attempting to rush the site and positions himself under apartments in order to catch them jumping out. He can safely look upwards without having to fear being attacked by someone who has jumped down at car because fREAKAZOiD is holding that. In the following he catches two NV players jumping out totally off-guard, one even gets a headshot from shroud mid-air.

Round 9 – N0thing takes his position at Underwood on A. The terrorists jump out of Palace, totally unaware of him and he gets a double kill. He gets another one at the ladder above. Skadoodle peeks from jungle and misses a flickshot onto apEX, who then tries to overwhelm him close distance. In the moment Ska reports that to his teammates, n0thing peeks out with the little HP he has left and saves his teammate.

Round 10 – EnVyUs attempt a direct hit onto the B bombsite with a pistol force-buy. Shroud and fREAKAZOiD are very aware of this and react fast in molotoving the apartments exit. fREAK takes a position to catch them jumping out of the apartments, whereas shroud is waiting around a corner to take out everyone that is able to pass his teammate. Both get a double kill and by the time the remaining terrorist was able to come over from mid, the rest of C9 is already there to finish him off.

Round 12 – Beautiful push into mid by Cloud9. While the previous round was lost due to Skadoodle, n0thing and Stewie2k rushing A main and going down without impact, this time the push had EnVyUs totally off guard. Stewie2k was watching Underpass and in doing so caught apEX transitioning over to mid. This in turn made NBK and KennyS push into mid to catch Stewie before he can run away into safety. The moment NBK peeked out he was greeted by Skadoodle in Connector who sadly only did a leg shot onto him, but Stewie came back fast do to the rest. KennyS then believed to have to hold the angle towards Connector, but instead was faced with a close n0thing who had stood at the slope all the time waiting for his moment. A very nice and properly executed double bait which cost three NV players their lives. Skadoodle then even caught Happy who had been lurking in Palace. When Stewie spotted kioShiMa in the middle he did not overextend, instead waiting for Skadoodle and shroud to arrive from the sides and have a crossfire established, before he peeked and got traded to win the round with ease.

This was the basis for a 12-3 half time score. Cloud9 displayed huge individual talent, as well as communication, game sense and tactics. When being rushed, everyone on the team was able to get at least two kills most of the time, stopping the push in its roots and opening it up for the rest of the teammates. When Skadoodle was close to being overwhelmed, n0thing reacted fast and stopped the aggressor. When Stewie2k was in dire straits in mid as kioShiMa had found him, Skadoodle and shroud came over quickly to establish the crossfire needed to end the round. They were even able to catch EnVyUs off guard with insanely executed strategies as for instance the push in mid that was in fact a double bait and brought them three kills effectively. It is necessary to mention that - on every occasion - C9 even accounted for Happy, who had the lurking role and was brought down by someone waiting at the location he was being expected at. So getting back to the initial question, what went good for them?

Well, almost everything. Against a top five team that even wins some important matches by just brute-forcing onto sites they managed to keep their spots on complete lockdown and were totally aware of where to expect enemies and how to counter them, even when it came to CT aggression that can sometimes backfire pretty much. It is evident that C9 have the individuals, they have their roles, a proper setup and definitely a preparation well done, so how come they lost this match eventually?

What has gone wrong for them?

Nearly everything has gone downhill for them after that perfect half. A lack of proper executions and planned bombsite takes led to them only acquiring one additional round before having to face elimination in the second match.

Round 16 – Three C9 members attempted to rush the B bombsite via mid and had n0thing as well as Stewie on a flank. The problem with that was the timing. In the moment these three guys appeared on B Short, there was nobody inside the apartments to support and Stewie had already made himself known on A. NV then realized he was trying to flank them and awaited him in jungle. Two of the three that were pushing short got killed from apartments because they were not looking that way and this was only possible because n0thing was around 10 seconds to late when he arrived in the apartments and had a five men stack in front of him.

Round 19 – C9 set up in the middle. FREAKAZOiD pushes catwalk and gets taken out from Connector, no potential re-fragger is around. Stewie2k then tries to get into the connector and is killed by Happy inside the window, once again no effective trade possible. N0thing pushes B Apartments without having shroud moving in behind him, gets sniped away as he tries to jump out onto the spot. Skadoodle and shroud then group up but are only left with the option of saving.

Round 24 – Again a mid-setup. Stewie2k is, as always, lurking on the A site. N0thing makes himself known in Underpass by throwing some grenades and pushes under window. He gets taken out by Happy who is sitting in the same spot he used to be at the rounds before. Once again there is not trade potential at first. There is a smoke in connector that allows fREAK to transition over to the ladder room and a nice pop flash by Skadoodle allows him to get the trade eventually. Shortly after that, Stewie gets taken out on A. He had pushed onto the site and was caught in Sandwich, as two players were still waiting there. There was no reason to push because C9 had not made a commitment to a site yet meaning that nV had no reason to rotate away from A, so Stewie would be running into a populated spot. He did, and he was completely unaware of the situation. FREAKAZOiD tries to lurk inside the ladder room but his position is known and KennyS awaits him. The subsequent push onto B by the remaining to C9 players gets intercepted cold hard before Skadoodle can even move in properly so once again he gets away to save.

Round 27 – It begins with apEX attempting a solo push into mid. FREAKAZOiD is lurking inside some entrance near the apartments towards the T spawn and catches him off guard. C9 now decide to play it slow for once, but the setup is just utter nonsense. FREAK and n0thing both camping at the apartments entrance, Stewie2k once again lurking at A. No map ground gained, instead nV can pretty much zone out the map and get as much info as needed to decide to move towards B. That is the moment at which Stewie decides to pop flash through a smoke and the CTs hesitate at first, but eventually let Kenny walk off towards B and wait for Stewie. They take him out easily, because he is alone and caught in no man’s land and they can safely move off. FREAK attempts to flank as well, waiting for kioShiMa in front of connector to move off, but he takes too much time and kio is already gone towards B. At that moment NBK defends be B site with a double kill although Ska manages to capitalize onto him as well as onto kioShiMa. But the round timer is down to just 5 seconds or so at that moment, and neither Ska nor fREAK are fast enough to get the necessary kills anymore. This strategy could only have worked if they had found an empty bomb site, but there was no reason to believe that for EnVyUs. Stewie2k absolutely failed at selling his push as a valid bomb site take since the timing was off and the subsequent executions were marked by sloppy movement and hurrying. Skadoodle had his moment to shine as he still made a double kill, but that was all he could do in this round.

And that, pretty much, was all Cloud9 could do for the rest of the map. On their terrorist side, they had to deal with a horrendous amount of misplays and issues. They were not in any way set up to do effective trades, they did not attempt any real executions and once they did, absolutely messed up the timing in all regards. Stewie2k pretty much got a living metaphor for death without a cause on the A bombsite and everything, really everything they did was predictable. Most of the rounds they were going for default positioning but pushed without assistance and got caught in the act. The problem was not that EnVyUs had built up a brick wall, but rather that Cloud9 were constantly running into a legitimately breakable wall, but all alone every time so that the support of their teammates did not help them in any way. Again referring back to the question of this paragraph – what went bad for them?

Well, almost everything. EnVyUs did not make any crazy plays, it was just Cloud9 that was absolutely messing up everything important. What we can draw as conclusions out if this, is that C9 have to work on their executions and first of all they need to actually do executions. The pick-based game play they are doing at the moment is not working out in any way because they are not set up for trading and re-fragging, which means that a huge amount of their deaths are gifted and meaningless. The first half of the game has proven that this horrible terrorist side cannot be attributed to bad players, communication issues or a lack of preparation. Instead there are two key aspects that they need to work on, and it is absolutely feasible to correct the issues they are having right now.

What are the apparent problems?

First of all they need to work on Stewie2k. There are two steps possible to make. Either put him in the role he is made for, let him be the second man in - as a support for fREAKAZOiD - or train him to be a lurker. Sure, he does not have this role on every map but here on Mirage, he was absolutely miscast. He has no idea when to try to establish a flank and mostly just jumps out onto a populated site all alone. He spends his time waiting or being dead and that does not make any sense. On the CT side he has already proven that he does indeed not lack a functioning brain as he was able to bait instead of overextending and dying as he did as a terrorist all along. There is more beyond his scope than just raw fragging power and his intelligent teammates should be more than suited to guide him towards that. His time on the team has up till now been a fairly short one and in general he has not been in the scene for a long time and this indeed is an excuse. He is showing progress as a player and he will one day be able to challenge the top tier teams not only on a raw aiming level.

Actually - if you were to watch more of their games focusing on the lurker role - this is not the only time that the lurker has been caught in the act because his timing relatively to his teammates' push was off. This seems to be another issue connected with the overseeing of the players movements and the planning of the round, which brings us to the person whose duties revolve around exactly that.

The second and foremost important issue is n0thing. Not him as a player, but as the in-game leader of Cloud9. This is not the first time this conclusion has been made and many professionals are calling for a coach to assist him or – even better – take that role over completely. He is now mostly known to hang out at the dead end of the score board and his impact in general has been very low, not only as a player but also as the leader of his team. The IGL is supposed to coordinate the players and this works in terms of the CT setup that can be planned prior to the match itself, but mid-game n0thing has not at all contributed positively to the setup of the team. Playing pick-based on a default setup is not really a strategy and if it were it would not be a good one, because of its predictability. He is miscasting the roles within the team and not able to adapt to situations on the fly and now his other capabilities have been damaged as well.

So what should we get out of this? Remove n0thing from the starting roster as many fans are demanding right now? Certainly not! Personalities such as lurppis are trying hard at reminding the fans of the fact that he is a really strong player. The problem itself is just that he himself has been miscast, but not as a result to a mistake but rather because there were no options left. With the departure of Sean Gares, the team was in dire straits to find a leader for the team. Sean left because – taken away his IGL duties - he was just not good enough as a player and this is a problem many other NA teams are facing. There was no outside player eligible to take over this role as a new fifth, so C9 were in need to find one within. Skadoodle and shroud would heavily suffer under having this new role and fREAKAZOiD as an entry-fragger was not an option as well, so the logical choice was n0thing and though being the obvious one to pick, sadly he is just not suited for this role and needs to be backed up. This is not the first time that a coach has been taking over the IGL duties; Sergey “starix” Ischuk from Natus Vincere is the most successful example for that.

These two issues are apparent and obvious, and with the help of a mastermind behind them that coordinates their movement they will be able to set up executions, to play for re-frags and to get everybody going in the role he is supposed to be in. Stewie2k is like a raw diamond, he needs assistance to become as good as his team mates game-sense-wise and then he will surely make a great scoreboard even against the likes of EnVyUs, even on the T-side.

At the MLG Qualifier it was clear that C9 was working on these issues and already displayed positive progress. In their final match versus Renegades the casters pointed out what a close and good match it was, with both teams showing up to the task. Their T side does not seem to be that much in shambles anymore and it can only be hoped that by the time the MLG Columbus Major arrives we will see a coach standing behind them to lift the weight off of Jordan's shoulders. He is a great player who just needs to be able to play his old role again. With Liquid bringing in strong talent as well as Splyce and CLG qualifying for the major there hopefully are great times ahead for NA CS, and C9 might once again play an integral role in the region's pursuing of international success.

Photos taken from: cloud9.gg, pcgamer.com, csgo.com, aftonbladet.se