The change in Cloud9‘s roster comes after as aftermath of the team’s mixed results in 2017, which saw the North American squad exit in groups at several offline events.
Despite Cloud9‘s upswing in recent months, during which Jake“Stewie2K” Yip and company qualified for the Major after missing out on the previous two, their longest standing members, Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert and Mike “shroud”Grzesiek, have been placed on the bench.
Will “RUSH” Wierzba and Tarik “tarik” Celik were acquired from OpTic, who have been facing issues with their roster since the departure of Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz at the beginning of February, trying out Spencer “Hiko” Martin before Jason“jasonR” Ruchelski and James “hazed” Cobb stood in throughout the next few months.
RUSH and tarik are set to debut under Cloud9’s banner later this week, in ESL One New York’s closed qualifier (August 19-20). However, the team won’t participate in the qualifier with their full roster, as Braxton “swag” Pierce will step in for autimatic.
The Americans will also be in action in Group C at ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier, featuring Virtus Pro and NiP, from September 22-23.
