RUSH and tarik join Cloud9; n0thing and shroud benched

The change in Cloud9's roster comes after as aftermath of the team's mixed results in 2017, which saw the North American squad exit in groups at several offline events.

Despite Cloud9's upswing in recent months, during which Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and company qualified for the Major after missing out on the previous two, their longest standing members, Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert and Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek, have been placed on the bench.

RUSH and tarik join up with Cloud9

William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba and Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik were acquired from OpTic, who have been facing issues with their roster since the departure of Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz at the beginning of February, trying out Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin before Jason "⁠jasonR⁠" Ruchelski and James "⁠hazed⁠" Cobb stood in throughout the next few months.

RUSH has addressed some of the ongoing issues in OpTic and accepting Cloud9's offer in a Twitlonger post, a snippet of which you can see below:

"The feeling you get when you taste being on top, only for it to come crashing down so quickly is something I can't get past. It is because of this that I've decided to join Cloud9 alongside Tarik. I've been incredibly patient with this roster, turning down a good number of offers during my tenure on the team. This last one I got is one I really couldn't turn down.

It's been nearly 8 months now where we haven't had a solidified roster. Always a stand-in or trial, nothing set. It’s one of the most frustrating periods I’ve had in CS because there is no point where the team gets better. The process of bringing in a new 5th continually is such a detriment to a teams growth. In this day in age for cs most players are overvalued and this made it really hard for us to attain a player we were comfortable with. We tried the whole time to get players we wanted, but in the end nothing came to fruition. We were just about done figuring our roster (for OpTic), where we would have had to settle on our 3rd/4th option. It is at this point where the C9 offer came in."

Cloud9 now have the following roster:

Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta
William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba
Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik

Soham "⁠valens⁠" Chowdhury (coach)

Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert (inactive)
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek (inactive)

RUSH and tarik are set to debut under Cloud9's banner later this week, in ESL One New York's closed qualifier (August 19-20). However, the team won't participate in the qualifier with their full roster, as Braxton "⁠swag⁠" Pierce will step in for autimatic.

The Americans will also be in action in Group C at ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier, featuring Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas, from September 22-23.

Meanwhile, OpTic are down to just two players:

Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic

Chet "ImAPet" Singh (coach)

Welcome @noshirt_tv and @RUSH to the #C9CSGO roster, just in time for the #ESLOne New York Closed Qualifier!https://t.co/7cV7JisQ1b pic.twitter.com/3ktqhYu8jc

— Cloud9 (@Cloud9) August 15, 2017