Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #8 Xeppaa Erick Bach vanity Anthony Malaspina OXY Francis Hoang have mutually decided to part with star player Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker, marking the end of his four-month stint on the team following the initial window for roster changes.

An update on the Cloud9 VALORANT roster

In a video featuring Cloud9 founder Jack Etienne and head coach Matthew "mCe" Elmore, the two addressed that the team were looking into changes heading into the regular season of the VCT Americas League and beyond, gearing up for potential fixes on present roster issues. With more than just current results in mind, C9 mutually decided to allow yay to search for new teams before the upcoming season, with the mid-season transfer window beginning on March 6th.

yay began 2022 under OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming Inactive with the current NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Rank #4 crashies Austin Roberts Victor Victor Wong Marved Jimmy Nguyen Ethan Ethan Arnold Demon1 Max Mazanov core and won North America's first trophy of the year in Reykjavik. Stage 2 brought about a second qualification to Masters for the team, however lost in the Copenhagen lower final against FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks to finish in third. To cap off their year, OpTic came out swinging in Champions, yet finished second only to LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #1 Quick Gabriel Lima saadhak Matias Delipetro Less Felipe de Loyola tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira in the grand finals in a 1-3 loss. After a dominant showing throughout the year, yay made the choice to ultimately switch jerseys and join Cloud9 heading into the 2023 season following the fallout of OpTic.

yay played just two tournaments with the Cloud9 core, both of which yielded varying results. While Cloud9 placed second at Red Bull Home Ground #3, LOCK//IN only saw the team take down one opponent — APAC's Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov Monyet Cahya Nugraha — in their opening match before running out of steam against DRX DRX Korea Rank #2 Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) BuZz Yu Byung-chul (유병철) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) BeYN Kang Ha-bin (강하빈) to lose 1-2 in the quarterfinals.

With yay exiting the team, Cloud9 will need to find a new member to fill the gap left behind in the starting five of the roster.

Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #8 Xeppaa Erick Bach vanity Anthony Malaspina OXY Francis Hoang are now down to: