After months of tinkering, Cloud9 have finally made wholesale changes to their troubled CSGO roster, dropping Will ‘Rush’ Wierzba, allowing IGL Malik ‘Golden’ Selim Rahim to go on loan to Ninjas in Pyjamas, and releasing both of Rene ‘cajunb’ Borg and Daniel ‘vice’ Kim. In their place comes a new team, which we’ve listed below.
Cloud9 CSGO roster
- Timothy "autimatic" Ta
- Damian "daps" Steele
- Kenneth "Koosta" Suen
- Tyson "TenZ" Ngo
- Óscar "mixwell" Cañellas Colocho
Head Coach: James "JamezIRL" Macaulay
Only Timothy ‘autimatic’ Ta remains of the previous team, which is not a surprise in isolation as he is easily the most impactful player on this team, and one of the best in NA. Alongside autimatic will now be former compLexity leader Damian ‘daps’ Steele, as well as ex-Ghost man Kenneth ‘koosta’ Suen. The five is completed with rising talent Tyson ‘TenZ’ Ngo, who at 18 is on his first big team here, and nomadic talent Óscar ‘mixwell’ Cañellas Colocho, who ends his time with Movistar in Spain to attempt another spell in NA.
CSGO LIVE: Bet on upcoming and live CSGO matches with Luckbox
Smart moves from Cloud9?
There is a change in coaching too, with ex-Ghost man JamezIRL coming across with Koosta and Soham ‘Valens’ Chowdhury demoted again, this time to ‘data scientist’, which we assume is a fancy way of saying analyst. The move overall makes sense, with the majority being NA and Mixwell having proven his ability to play in NA during his OpTic time, but there are a number of questionable aspects that could end up biting the org in the behind.
For example, replacing Rush with Koosta or Mixwell could be considered a risk, with the former a far more qualified player when it comes to time at the top level, and a major winner to boot. It’s not as though Rush is hurtling toward his 30s either, and if he were let go it would be no surprise to see other NA teams pursue his signature. Whether it was daps’ decision to let him leave is hard to say, but the famously likeable leader seems like the kind of guy who wants to give everyone a chance.
The addition of daps himself is a very intelligent move, as he is clearly one of the more accomplished IGLs in NA, and has already proven his ability to take a team to a level way above the low plateau C9 have found themselves on. His release by compLexity made little sense when you consider his record compared to his replacement’s, but there were internal politics at play at that org, and the presence of Tarik seems to create problems in many team units.
Overall, this team looks to have more potential than the previous one, with TenZ and Koosta probably having room to improve and autimatic at least now working with a leader from the same part of the world, but it’s far from the wholesale changes the org needed to get back to tier one. Fans would love to be proven wrong of course, and if the team is really serious about this group they need to spend every waking moment between now and the major grinding to take C9 back to where they belong.
Picture: Blast Pro Series
