Just after the Overwatch Open, where Cloud9 were knocked out in the NA Semis, the long-standing North American team decided to make some major changes to their roster. Grego left citing personality conflicts, while DeBett and Reaver also parted from the team, with the former reportedly due to work. They have now been formally replaced by Roolf on support, ryb on tank, and Mendokusaii on dps.
Forgoing a spot at OGN APEX Season 1, Cloud9 trialled players for a month after the Overwatch Open, instantly bonding with Mendokusai and ryb who stuck with them from the beginning. The support role appeared to be harder to fill however and the team trialled Wolf before settling on Roolf.
Mendokusai played previously for IDDQD when the team was on a long online winning streak, cementing his reputation as a powerful dps player at a world-class level. Since then he has hopped around, attempting to find a stable home with a good team. His removal from IDDQD also sparked concerns about potential personality issues, though these have always been speculative. He is known for a high level of mechanical talent on a huge range of heroes.
ryb was seen most notably standing in as tank for Misfits and helping the team to win at the largest tournament so far, the Overwatch Open. He played prior to that as a flex for OWKings but his display of talent at the Overwatch Open showed potential to play tank at the highest level.
Roolf played against Cloud9 at the Overwatch Open for Method, an upcoming team who upset C9 in the opening match on Nepal and Eichenwalde - in part thanks to the good Zenyatta play from Roolf. He has been trialling for Cloud9 since the MSI MGA NA qualifiers.
With the current roster, Cloud9 failed to qualify for MSI MGA after losing 0-2 to Rise Nation, but came 2nd in the Alienware Monthly Melee October #2. In that tournament they had a spotty record in the groups, beating Tempo Storm NA 2-1 and Rise Nation 2-0 before losing 0-2 to Kingdom. They then proceeded to beat FaZe 2-1 and Kingdom 3-0. custa was forced to sub for Roolf in the final, where they lost to FaZe without taking a map.
Danan Flander, Cloud9’s General Manager, said in the anouncement:
Overwatch has been a passion for us since day one. We’ve spent countless hours to stay at the top of the competitive scene from beta and beyond since the game’s competitive scene inception. Today’s changes are another step towards maintaining and elevating the success we’ve seen since first acquiring the Google Me roster.
This major overhaul of the roster will take time to smooth out, and the team will have to prove themselves as a top talent within the scene. Cloud9’s former roster had been slowly slipping in form for months, overtaken by Fnatic and many European sides with semi-regular losses to lower teams in NA. The next major event on the horizon for Cloud9 could be MLG, as they are not participating in APEX, DreamHack Winter, or MSI MGA.
The new roster for Cloud9 is:
- Lane “Surefour” Roberts (dps)
- Lucas ”Mendokusai” Håkansson (dps)
- Kyle ”KyKy” Souder (flex)
- Ruben ”ryb” Ljungdahl (tank)
- Randal ”Roolf” Stark (support)
- Adam ”Adam” Eckel (support)
Discord