Cloud9 Struggles in Gfinity Tournament
Cloud9, a top North American Counter-Strike team, faced challenges in the recent Gfinity Spring Masters tournament. The team had recently made roster changes, which put them at a disadvantage.
In late April, Cloud9 replaced two players with newcomers Ryan “Freakazoid” Abadir and Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham. They were hoping to challenge Europe’s dominance in Counter-Strike, especially after the ban of several players from the once-dominant iBUYPOWER team due to match-fixing.
However, despite their good performances, Cloud9 was eliminated in the group stage of the Gfinity event. The team acknowledges that they have a lot of areas to improve on, but they also showed glimpses of good play against top teams in the world.
In the tournament, Cloud9 had a strong start by defeating Team Immunity from Australia. However, they struggled against top European teams like Virtus Pro and French powerhouse EnvyUs. Their loss against Titan in the group stage sealed their fate and led to their elimination from the tournament.
Cloud9 acknowledges that their recent roster changes pose a challenge for them, as taking down top European teams is already difficult on its own. The team plans to learn from their experience at Gfinity and improve their performance in future tournaments.
Ultimately, Cloud9 aims to become the number one team in North America and compete for a top spot on the global stage. They believe that sticking together as a team is key to their success, as European teams are known to do. In North America, roster changes happen too frequently and hinder team cohesion.
While the team faces challenges ahead, their next international event is Dreamhack Summer on June 13. It is uncertain if Cloud9 will participate, but they will need to build on the positives from their Gfinity performance if they want to have a chance at claiming the title.