CIS on Cloud Nine

Cloud9 finally confirmed the the signing of electroNic and Perfecto as well as who they’re replacing. And we gotta say, this might be the greatest roster change of the season.

It didn’t always look like that though – originally rumours had HObbit and buster on the chopping block. But in the end C9 made the (wise) decision to move nafany and buster to the transfer-list and keep the Kazak on the starting five with his new ex-NAVI colleagues.

The end of nafany’s reign felt inevitable as more and more pressure started mounting against him, especially amongst the very important armchair analysts on Twitter. But despite what anyone might think of him today, you’ve got to give nafany credit for his leadership of the core team back to 2019 when they were fighting under the Gambit Youngsters banner. Sometimes a change of scenery is needed, and since he’s only 22 years old we don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.

As for buster, his time felt doomed from the start. The way he joined the team never felt permanent and his performances didn’t convince anyone either. It doesn't help that his replacement is Perfecto, a perfect role swap and a significant increase in mechanical skill. There’ll be little mourning for the loss of buster, right or wrong, but you gotta admit it’s a pretty sick upgrade.

Cloud9’s final five have possibly the highest skill ceiling of any team in the world, and the stats back it up. Even without the stats, just eye-test the roster: How are these guys allowed on the same team? The only way this cannot work is if electroNic is a tragically bad IGL or Ax1Le and sh1ro have no bottle. If it's the latter, at least HObbit now has Perfecto and electroNic to help out.

For you skimmers, here’s Cloud9’s final five:

🇰🇿 HObbit
🇷🇺 electroNic (IGL)
🇷🇺 Ax1Le
🇷🇺 sh1ro
🇷🇺 Percecto

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They’re not the only CIS team making changes though. On slightly less exciting note, Virtus.pro makes yet another change.

This time Qikert gets the short end of the stick, and it’s unsurprising. Mir was given a long-term contract despite the fact n0rb3r7 was only out temporarily. At that point, it was painfully obvious someone was going to get thrown out.

It wasn’t going to be Jame and nor was it going to be Fame which really just left Qikert unless they lied about n0rb3r7. Which they didn’t.

Virtus.pro new’ roster:

🇷🇺 FL1T
🇷🇺 Jame (IGL)
🇷🇺 n0rb3r7
🇷🇺 fame
🇷🇺 mir

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So, C9 looks insane, VP does what VP does and CIS looks better for it. Who needs NAVI when you have the strongest roster ever assembled, and Jame? Did that sound convincing?