Cloud9
Cloud9
North America
Rank #9
Xeppaa
Erick Bach
runi
Dylan Cade
moose
Kaleb Jayne
vanity
Anthony Malaspina
OXY
Francis Hoang
has struggled throughout the Valorant Champions Tour. And yet here they are in Berlin competing for the trophy.
The road to Champions has been long, with the team going through multiple roster iterations in attempt to find success.
“There have definitely been a lot of ups and downs going through the whole TenZ roster and everything, seeing all those guys go,” Mitch "mitch" Semago said. “Then getting rid of basically everyone from last year and then going through floppy and poiz, it's been a long process of always switching roles and trying to find yourselves.”
The constant change of players from the starting roster slowed once Cloud9 peaked in Stage 2 with a second-place finish in Challengers 2 and a third-place finish in Challengers Finals.
Cloud9's final roster move prior to Stage 3 was benching Ricky "floppy" Kemery for Erick "Xeppaa" Bach. Unfortunately, the team failed to make it out of every qualifier in Stage 3. But they were still eligible for the NA LCQ due to the amount of circuit points they had accumulated throughout the year.
In August, Cloud9 signed Anthony "vanity"
Malaspina from
Version1
Version1
Inactive
to complete their team ahead of NA LCQ. The addition of vanity was massive boon for team cohesion, building on the foundation three players shared back in CSGO.
“Bringing in vanity helped a lot with chemistry,” mitch explained. “Obviously with the Chaos guys, the three of them — leaf, Xeppaa, and vanity — played on Chaos in CSGO, and me, leaf, and xeta have played for basically a year now.”
“I think we have a really good fit right now with our five and it's probably been the best roster I've been a part of since I started with Cloud9.”
vanity getting hyped in Masters: Reykjavik with his former team Version1 (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games).
That chemistry proved to be extremely beneficial as they stormed through the LCQ, conquering the last North American spot for Champions. Cloud9 has yet to attend a LAN competition after going through multiple VCT rounds, so their LCQ win lifted a huge weight off their shoulders.
“Finally qualifying for a LAN, coming in third [to qualify for] Iceland was really heartbreaking and then not even qualifying for the Berlin closed qualifier really hurt a lot,” said mitch. “It feels great to actually make a LAN and the biggest one of the year too.”
Coming into Champions, Cloud9 believe they are underestimated by their peers due to the lack of experience the team has in LAN tournaments.
“I kind of feel like we are the dark horse of the tournament,” mitch expressed. “A lot of people don't really know or expect us to play too well because it's the first LAN for Xeppaa and leaf, people are kind of doubting it.”
“[Also] that LCQ was a ‘fluke' because it was online, so I feel like they're going to come in and underestimate us.”
The team will have to make it out of a group consisting of Korean powerhouse
Vision Strikers
Vision Strikers
Inactive
stax
Kim Gu-taek (김구택)
Rb
Goo Sang-min (구상민)
Zest
Kim Ki-seok (김기석)
BuZz
Yu Byung-chul (유병철)
MaKo
Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관)
, the notorious
FNATIC
FNATIC
Europe
Rank #1
Leo
Leo Jannesson
Derke
Nikita Sirmitev
Boaster
Jake Howlett
Chronicle
Timofey Khromov
Alfajer
Emir Ali Beder
, and
FULL SENSE
FULL SENSE
Asia-Pacific
Rank #2
JohnOlsen
Chanawin Nakchain
PTC
Kititkawin Rattanasukol
Leviathan
Thanyathon Nakmee
foxz
Itthirit Ngamsaard
Sushiboys
Panyawat Subsiriroj
, the wild card from the APAC region.
“It's going to be tough, I don't think any group is free,” mitch continued. “Playing Fnatic first, they're a pretty solid team. I don't think we have to focus too much on them, like how they are playing. I think if we just play our own game and have a good game plan going in, keep our comms high we'll be fine.”
Preparation for the tournament has consisted of scrimming against all the different regions at Berlin.
“Games are pretty close here, but we are still trying to figure out how everyone plays [since] it feels like every team we play it's like a different style,” mitch said. “We kind of have to feel out the games and get to know who we're playing against, but I'm sure if we play these teams multiple times we'll be fine.”
Another element the team has had to get accustomed to is the time difference from North America to Europe.
“It's a little more tense here [compared to preparation for LCQ] because of lack of sleep and jet lag, but overall we're still doing good,” mitch said. “We're basically trying to rest our sleep schedule right now because we play at 9PM for both matches whether we win or lose. And we're having trouble right now staying up pretty late.”
Cloud9 will debut in Valorant Champions on December 1 at 9 p.m. CET against Fnatic. Their next match will be against either APAC LCQ winners FULL SENSE or Vision Strikers.
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