I think what he's saying is that Clockwork will still be under contract with the NRG team even if he's not on their competitive roster, he's almost assuredly off their starting squad. He signed a contract to that effect, I'm assuming it'll remain that way until someone buys him out or his contract expires. Hence the Twitch NRG masthead. Same situation with Talespin/Envyus, Manofsnow/Renegades ect.

Errr. Check literally the last article before this one

Can anyone who's seen these games/talked to the players actually comment on why NRG can't seem to get past the quarters in any of these qualifiers?

We haven't seen the new FNATIC roster in action and we haven't seen NRG against other NA teams in a while. I think both groups will be more competitive than it looks initially.

Original groups were chosen at random, now these matchups are based on performance in the group rounds. There's a video somewhere showing the groups being made by random draws.

^ They're releasing them for free:

http://ev13.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventList?groupCode=OO&linkID=img-imgt&shopperContext=&caller=&appCode