I'm starting a new series of articles where I'll be going over the history and rosters of all the orgs that made the partnered league, first starting with the Americas, then EMEA, and lastly Pacific. I'll try and do 2 every day, but I might do more or less some days because I have covid and I'm stuck inside with nothing to do. I'm doing C9 first because I'm biased. Any and all feedback is welcome!
ORG HISTORY
-Cloud9 was founded in 2013 and started as a League of Legends org, and went through a slow but steady period of growth from 2013-2018, and has achieved top-level international success across multiple games.
-C9 currently compete in League of Legends, Hearthstone, Smash, CSGO, Overwatch (London Spitfire), Fortnite, and VALORANT. They were one of the first teams to enter VALORANT in April 2020, a few days after the beta went live.
-The org has reported 35 million USD in revenue for 2021, and 380 million USD in equity (I can convert to other currencies if requested). They are currently ranked the world's fifth most valuable esports org.
ROSTER HISTORY
2020
-Cloud9 first entered VALORANT with the roster of shinboi, TenZ, relyks, Mitch, and vice.
-After a lackluster performance at first strike, Shinobi was released in late 2020, and TenZ benched himself in early 2021. This would mark the beginning of a rebuilding period for C9.
2021
-The team didn't qualify for the first closed stage of VCT, and continued to shuffle around their roster. Leaf and xeta filled the spots of Tenz and Shinboi, Poiz was brought in as a 6th man, and vice departed to leave the roster as:
-xeta
-leaf
-mitch
-relyks
-poiz-This roster had their first placement into a closed qualify, but quickly bowed out to V1, after which relyks stepped down and was replaced by floppy and xeppaa as a 6th man, both players coming from C9's CSGO division.
-This roster would have C9's best performance to date, coming one match shy of qualifying for Reykjavik 2021.
-Following Reykjavik, C9 failed to make the 3rd and final closed qualifier for the year, but had enough points to lock in a spot at LCQ. Following this loss they would bench poiz.
-C9 would go on to sign sign vanity, a former teammate of Leaf and Xeppaa, and would go on to win LCQ. The roster attending champions would be
-xeta
-leaf
-mitch
-vanity
-xeppaa-At champions, C9 would place the highest amongst all North American teams, but would exit in 7th-8th place. Following Champions, they were ranked the #1 team in North America.
2022
-Cloud9 received a bye into the group stage of the first challengers and did not have to play through the open qualifier. They would have a 5-0 group stage, but would again fall one match short of qualifying for Masters 1, following a lower bracket final loss to The Guard.
-Going into stage 2, Cloud9 again received a bye into the group stage, but would make a roster change after their first match against EG, choosing to swap xeta and their coach autumn for curry on T1. The squad would lose their next 3 matches before winning 1 final match against sentinels, ending the group stage 2-3 and not making playoffs. Once again the team had enough points to attend LCQ.
-C9 would exit in 4th place at LCQ to the eventually winners 100T, ending their 2022 season. The team has not played a match since.
PLACEMENTS AND TOURNAMENTS
-5th-8th in BOTH first strike qualifiers (2020)
-9th-16th in both stage 1 qualifiers (2021)
-3rd in Stage 2 playoffs (2021)
-9th-16th in Stage 3 qualifier (2021)
-5th-8th in Stage 3 qualifier (2021)
-1st at NA LCQ (2021)
-7th-8th at 2021 Champions
-3rd at Challengers 1 (2022)
-9th-10th at Challengers 2 (2022)
-4th at NA LCQ (2022)
RUMORED ROSTER MOVES
-Curry and Mitch have been allowed to explore other options as restricted free agents
-JamezIRL, the head coach, has also been allowed to explore other options
-As reported by George Geddes, zellsis and yay are set to join C9 for the 2022 season.
-If the reports are true, the C9 2022 roster would be:
-leaf
-vanity
-xeppaa
~~-yay~~
-zellsisADDITIONAL THREADS
-Champions matches thread: https://www.vlr.gg/143692/champs-analysis-megathread
-my twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanG2B
edit: C9 also have a women's game changers team in the form of Cloud9 White, who are touted as being the best women's team in North America, and possibly the best in the world.
POST LOCK//IN EDIT
-Yay has been dropped from the roster. His replacement is unknown at this time
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