Cloud9 confirm new roster featuring HeavyGod, ICY and interz

11-7-2024 17:00

The trio joins Boombl4 and Ax1Le after a rebuilding phase that lasted for over two months.

HeavyGod makes a move up from OG as one of three new Cloud9 additions

Cloud9 have officially confirmed their new Counter-Strike roster on Wednesday with the signings of Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko, Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov and Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin.

The completion of the roster follows a rebuilding phase that began in late April with a series of shocking changes in the Russian-majority squad, which saw Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov leave the team for Virtus.pro and Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy go on the bench.

Perfecto interview: Cloud9 exit, international offers, and returning to NAVI roles

The new additions are a result of a joint effort from head coach Konstantin "⁠groove⁠" Pikiner and veteran Dmitry "⁠hooch⁠" Bogdanov, who was working with the coach behind the scenes to help build the new roster.

HeavyGod joins the team from OG, with whom he played since the beginning of the year and impressed with a 1.12 rating over 39 maps played against top 30 opposition. According to several of his Tweets and his Twitch page, he has Russian roots and speaks the language.

Kazakh AWPer ICY has turned heads as a rising star from the region in recent times and last played for AMKAL, with whom he qualified for and played at PGL Major Copenhagen in his first big appearance on LAN. In CS2, the 19-year-old averages a 1.17 rating (1.13 over 37 maps against top 30 teams).

The final addition, interz, returns to Cloud9 after first joining the American organization in 2022. In early 2023, he made way for the arrival of Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov but now gets his second chance on the tier-one scene with a team that only features one of his former teammates in Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov.

The new roster will make its debut at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, taking place from July 29 to August 4 in Copenhagen.

Cloud9's new roster is:

Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov
Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov
Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko
Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov
Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin

Konstantin "⁠groove⁠" Pikiner (coach)

gl xd

2024-07-11 17:00

17 replies

heavygod can speak russian?

2024-07-11 19:37

12 replies

yep

8 replies

bro can speak russian, english and israeli wtf

2024-07-11 21:15

7 replies

israeli isnt a language..

2024-07-11 22:07

5 replies

hebraic?

2024-07-11 22:36

4 replies

yessir

2024-07-11 22:44

1 reply

-1 cuz we all understand what he meant

2024-07-12 17:42

hebrew?

2024-07-11 23:16

Hebrew*

2024-07-11 23:25

Looks like ukrainian too

2024-07-12 13:02

Wdyt? His name is Nikita :D

2024-07-11 22:39

He is from Ukrainian descent, right?

2024-07-11 22:51

his name has russian origin

2024-07-12 21:12

This version of c9 will do better than the one with shiro, perfecto, and electronic. You'll see

2024-07-11 20:14

3 replies

thats a pretty low bar honestly

2024-07-11 20:30

2 replies

but when that c9 was announced everyone lost their shit

2024-07-12 23:57

they were pretty constitently in top 10. not saying they did good, but i don't think the new roster will achieve this (at least in the next year or smth)

2024-07-15 03:55

No way

2024-07-11 17:01

interz LOLMAO

defo just ran out of money and had him as only pick DX

2024-07-11 17:02

6 replies

one more year just to hear how "insane support" player he is, just to realise you cant win anything with him.

2024-07-11 17:04

bro has 8 trophies on his hltv page "can't win anything"

2024-07-11 17:15

yeah if gambit always played 4v5s how could they win this much lol

2024-07-11 18:27

The other guys would have been 16 if there would be anyone else instead of interz.

2024-07-11 19:02

most intelligent navi fan lmao

it was nothing but downhill after c9/gambit replaced interz

2024-07-14 20:39

nice

Weak lineup!

disband in 3 months or "rebuild" in 3 motnhs?

Probably right

2024-07-11 17:03

People were saying the same about navi in 2023 when they went international

2024-07-11 18:04

I don't take the merit away for their major trophy, but, let's be real, this Navi lineup is probably the worse they had in a long time.

2024-07-11 22:55

Mmmmmmid

this team will only work if ax1le becomes a top 5 rifler again

heavygod has potential, but yeah they badly need ax1le and ICY to be very good

I unfortunately trust icy more than ax1le, but I hope to stand corrected

Probably why they added interz, he can take the bitch roles so Ax1le can perform.

2024-07-12 11:41

Blud has fallen so much that c9 needs to pray he rises to be a top 30 rifler at least

2024-07-11 17:35

Weight debuff is real

2024-07-11 18:05

US processed food is no joke for sure, he needs to find a good place to eat asap, get in shape and start playing the way he can

2024-07-12 10:08

Tier2 lets go.

step back from cloud9

Disagree Stable awper Good support igling IGL Axile ???

2024-07-11 17:13

They finally have an AWPer and people say “downgrade” lol?

2024-07-12 00:01

-interz +interz

HeavyGod with the israel and russian roots dammm

He's got ukrainian roots tho

2024-07-11 17:25

Oh didnt check is twitch before it says - "I am from the Ukrainian descent , but also have Russian roots."

2024-07-11 17:32

he is basically russian

2024-07-11 17:29

Does he speak Russian? Any clue? E: Well that was fucking easy to find out, dude says it in his Twitch bio. For anyone wondering, yes.

2024-07-11 19:49

It's also in the article.

2024-07-12 16:37

Skimmed through and didn't notice, siick

2024-07-12 17:06

downgrade

Interz doing Maj3r impression in C9 with the - and + xd

2024-07-11 17:05

what

2024-07-11 17:07

heavygod deserves better

good luck

bro interz is struggling in t3 and you bring him back with these players

2024-07-11 17:08

fits just right in

2024-07-11 17:19

except for Perfecto,Magixx and Norbert,interz was a decent option for c9

2024-07-11 17:58

solid team for cct cups

2024-07-11 17:09

From russian "superteam" to this. Cursed org.

2024-07-11 17:11

really look forward to see HeavyGod in action tho

2024-07-11 17:12

I mean, they probably made a fuckton of money as an org. Think about it, they got whole Gambit roster for 1mil. Shiro alone covered it plenty. If rumor about Elec to VP for 1.5mil is true, then he covered for him and Perfecto going to C9 (again, if rumored numbers are true). And they get to sell nafany to BB and supposedly Hobbit to 1win? And then there's also Perfecto yet to be sold? The only way they lost money is if they pay insane salaries

2024-07-11 17:28

Never thought it that way, makes a ton of sense.

2024-07-11 17:31

+1 to #59, however i feel like they earned way more than they spent on this new roster so i feel like they either are desperate or struggling to find better players willing to join

2024-07-11 20:11

The best they could have got. Loads of players didn't want to join because the org was seen as "rotting from the inside"

Damn they couldn’t find anyone better than interz?

2024-07-11 17:14

ok, new cct team from now.

3 months btw

2024-07-11 17:16

big

finished

kekw

I want to believe

If Ax1le comes back, trio of Ax1le, HeavyGod and ICY is decent firepower, Boombl4 is decent IGL and Interz is ok B anchor. Can be decent team

2024-07-11 17:21

decent for a heavy fight for get out of groups at tournaments. This roster is nowhere close to t-1 as of it is. I wish I'd be proven wrong.

IMHO 6 months tops before this lineup partially or fully changes

Pog another crypto9 meme roster THE NEXT CCT SEASON 2 EUROPE SERIES 6 SEMI-FINALISTS

This roster looks decent

Heavygod carries

dogshit

Heavy goat

Will we be very afraid this time?

Simply on paper this roster is no way near the c9 super team with shiro, elec and perf, but honestly, it looks promising, with the right approach they can make it work

2024-07-11 17:33

why did it take them so long jeez

2024-07-11 17:34

Well, last time their roster looked illegal. This time? It looks confused and lost... I'm interested to see where this goes, most definitely.

Possible chance of success = 0.1%

2024-07-11 17:38

CCT Eastern Europe 6 contenders

2024-07-11 17:41

interz back

2024-07-11 17:43

How is that worse than monte xddd

Has c9 said why they are so committed to building a Russian roster

Probably because they had a russian IGL and one of the world's top riflers.

2024-07-11 20:31

It made sense then, but I don't understand why they wouldnt go international after that didnt work out. If groove survives the rebuild I dont know what Ill do

2024-07-11 22:02

tier 40 xd

Whenever I get sad about being Liquid fan, I always take a moment to reflect on what C9 continues to do.

2024-07-11 17:46

Talent pool is deeper and probably quite a bit cheaper on salaries, especially if you sign players from lower tiers like what happened here

2024-07-11 19:23

Oh damn, I only now noticed that I missed by a couple of comments. Either was sleepy or because I caught a 500 server error when replying, can't be sure it's for that coment though. Supposed to be an answer to @Grundlesmith #77

2024-07-12 08:00

difference is c9 makes poor choices out of desperation and liquid out of stupidity... either way, with groove still around idk if c9 is the former, latter of both...

2024-07-11 20:06

At least its a roster, good luck c9 #C9WIN

2024-07-11 17:47

Why groove is still there?

2024-07-11 17:51

Of course it's a downgrade from what they had, but all things considered they made some solid pickups. Maybe ICY is the awper they truly need and can help them stabilize this roster.

2024-07-11 17:52

if sh1ro wasn't the one to leave,the roster would've had been more successful than awperless clown9

2024-07-11 17:59

The roster had only won 1 event by that time, unfortunately that C9 core was only better than everyone else in the online era :( Same goes for HEROIC. Either way Sh1ro is in a much better position now, and well deserved too.

2024-07-11 18:02

but smart for sh1ro to leave this sinking ship

2024-07-11 18:23

Yeah he probably had a better picture internally of what was going wrong with the team, and he jumped at the perfect opportunity

2024-07-11 18:24

heavy recently signed new contract with OG, didnt he?

u good?

2024-07-12 10:31

interz in 2024 is a toast

2024-07-11 18:03

Everyone said c9 with elec and Perfecto would destroy. Now no one believes in this lineup, maybe it will play opposite again and we will see them succeed.

electronic and perfecto even said themselves, that they are going to have a Cloud9 era they are so overrated playing with s1mple makes them think they are him

2024-07-12 08:15

Scam interz . This guy don’t know c9 kick him

2024-07-11 18:18

top20 hltv confirm but wildcard with phzy susp jba better )

Da fuck is that new Wildcard logo though? I thought Clown9 supposed to be the clown one?

2024-07-11 19:26

like monte )))

2024-07-11 19:42

xaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxaxa

2024-07-11 18:26

Not terrible honestly. Don’t know why everyone is hating so hard, don’t feel like they could have made many betters choices with who’s available. I think axile can find form again with a different team environment too(kind of coping)

2024-07-11 18:49

What the hell a single israeli player doing with four russians,

2024-07-11 18:52

Playing

2024-07-11 20:00

getting money

2024-07-12 10:32

hip-hip

2024-07-11 18:54

fuck haters, apart from interz it looks like a very good team.

2024-07-11 18:57

whats wrong with interz?

2024-07-13 16:08

poor form for the last 2 years

2024-07-13 17:17

maybe because he plays very team-dependent roles?

2024-07-13 17:44

GLHF, guys! I have faith in this roster.

2024-07-11 19:01

2024-07-11 19:44

interz wasnt the problem, nafany was

2024-07-11 20:05

c9 downhill started after -interz

2024-07-11 20:17

Considering how much money I imagine they spent on this roster this actually seems decent

2024-07-11 20:55

Its not that bad on paper they have a solid core but its a big gamble since both icy and heavygod didnt really play a lot in t1 scene, there is potential for a top10 team but i dont think there is potential for t1 trophies. Maybe they win some smaller lan but that will be it.

2024-07-11 21:01

Looks promising ngl

2024-07-11 21:02

So Heavygod can speak russian?

2024-07-11 21:36

TIER 3 at the best case

2024-07-11 22:22

yooo interz

2024-07-11 22:37

Imagine if this roster works better than having 3 ex NAVI players (I bet it will) 💀

2024-07-11 22:49

it's not a bad roster but so far from the promise of shiro electronic axile

why is C9 even having a russian team if they're gonna have shitty bottom of the barrel russian players lol. they should have just gone international.. this team will compete for the title of being the 3rd best russian team with betboom and aurora.

2024-07-11 22:58

In theory should be okay but idk man

2024-07-11 23:09

The biggest problem I have with this roster atm is some of the role clashes. They got 3 anchors/lurkers atm (Ax1Le, Interz and HeavyGod). Interz used to be a small site anchor and extremity player. Ax1Le and HeavyGod have both (previously) played big site anchor and primary lurk. In fact, by using Ner0's CT and T site positions chart, Ax1Le and HeavyGod both plays the exact same CT roles. Only exception is Dust 2 (Ax1Le used to play Long and HeavyGod has played B anchor). Else, everything clashes. Also, on T side they clash on every map except Mirage (HeavyGod plays A extremity and Ax1Le B extremity), could also be on Dust 2, where HeavyGod plays Upper B and don't remember where Ax1Le plays (no info on Ner0's chart) but could also be a clash there. Fun fact, by the charts, Ax1Le, HeavyGod and Interz all play Apps on T side Inferno, so triple role clash. So the question here is, who is going to be rotator and who is going to stay as primary anchor. I have a hard time seing they put Interz as a rotator on CT and pack/map control player on T (in fact, probably trade fragger, due to Boombl4 probably being the "bait" player) and play both Ax1Le and HeavyGod as anchors and lurkers. With that logic, either HeavyGod or Ax1Le has to be moved. Potential wise, both are very skilled players and both could excel as star riflers. Before you say it, I know, Ax1Les form has dipped and all that. But to his defence when he was good with Gambit/under Nafany's leadership he usually were the lonewolf and took his duel at his own will and when they went his site, they were more contact happy than execute happy which kind of made him take the duel at his own conditions than him entry pathing (think of Dupreeh in prime Astralis when thinking of entry pathing). Usually when electroNic in the lineup and he went his site, he was used as bait/site entry due to Boombl4 Awping. With all this said, both could be T side tradefragger and CT side rotator. But imo, I would stick with Ax1Le as anchor and HeavyGod as the star. Worst case scenario is they share the star rifler positions, the downside with this option is they both has to specialize as both anchor and rotator aswell as lurker and tradefragger, therefor I'm more in favour that just one of them switches (almost) all his roles, and in this scenario HeavyGod. What are your thoughts in this question?

2024-07-11 23:42

ax1le not your typical anchor, he played star positions on CT as well(mirage short, ovp A for example) In fact, the only anchor positions he had were B vertigo and A ancient iirc, not to mention he had a lot of freedom on T sides so yeah Ax1le was never really typical anchor player Idk about heavygod because I didn't watch his games, but looking at his stats he's not anchor on most of the maps

2024-07-12 00:58

If we take a deeper look at what Ax1Le played, he has played: Inferno Pit, Mirage B Short, Ancient A Anchor, Overpass A Rifler, Nuke Ramp (the solo map they once played), Vertigo B Anchor, Anubis A Anchor, (Dust2 Long from when they last played it with Gambit). All these positions is considered Anchor outside of Overpass and Mirage, which make him an anchor on 6/8 maps that's into consideration. I am also pretty sure he played Ivy on Train which is also considered an anchor spot. Due to HeavyGod playing the same role on every map outside of Dust2 (B Anchor instead of Long), he is also considered an anchor. You can check yourself by looking at his demos and at this site where Ner0 summarized everyones positions on CT: public.tableau.com/app/profile/harry.ric..

2024-07-12 01:29

electronic came to C9 and took all of axiles positions. watch him become top 3 player again now that overrated team killer papatronic is gone

2024-07-12 08:17

The funny part is, electroNic didn’t actually take Ax1Les positions. It is just an illusion. electroNic is actually playing rotator spots on all maps and the maps Ax1Le aren’t playing Anchor, electroNic took a backseat (Ax1Le kept B short on Mirage and A rifler on Overpass). Also on T side, electroNic is a map control player while Ax1Le is an extremity player. With all this said, inside the server, electroNic didn’t take any of Ax1Le’s positions. But I think he had a negative impact on him outside the server. They also played some sites together (like A Inferno, A Anubis kind of due to Mid player being the A anchors support. Could’ve been a disagreement how to play or whatever but your statement is actually false my friend

2024-07-12 13:16

oh so you were there right? you know everytyhing? dont say my statement is false and make up your own theory my friend

2024-07-14 10:36

The thing is, you based your statement on 0 facts. When electroNic and Perfecto arrived at C9, Ax1Le kept all his position from before. It's well documented both by Ner0 who analyze these things for a living and has even done a spreedsheet for this. Also, if you actually look at the demos and games, you can literally see he is still at the same positions like before electroNic and Perfecto arrived.

2024-07-14 16:17

and you based your theory on your own observations, acting like you are apart of the team. axile use to play con mirage but electronic came and took that spot yes its true electronic did not take every single one of axiles spots but the reality is he did take some spots and they played the same positions. please do not make things up to help your argument

2024-07-14 23:57

Ax1Le has never played Con on Mirage, Nafany played Con. Ax1Le played short...

2024-07-15 00:34

absolute joke of a roster

2024-07-11 23:44

Hahahahahahah. Tier3 trash. Also, imagine giving contract to cocaine sniffer. Esports is a joke 🤡

2024-07-11 23:57

bro u didnt earn a penny playing this game, matter of fact ure probably garbage at same game aswell. dont bother

2024-07-15 13:07

Pretty decent

2024-07-12 00:00

decent pinnacle cup quarter final team

2024-07-12 00:04

LOL interz that guy is the guy you pick up because there is nobody better once you put him in your team you know your team will be a failure Other notable rejects interz buster misuta es3tag smooya

2024-07-12 00:41

pog god interz back i can go back to being c9 fan again

2024-07-12 00:43

heavygod career rip

2024-07-12 00:46

he got a clear upgrade tf u on about

2024-07-12 03:06

what is dead may never die

2024-07-12 15:57

why cant c9 just commit to na again jesus

2024-07-12 01:11

Interz again XD c9 better make it work

2024-07-12 01:49

you must spoil before you spin

2024-07-12 15:55

nice, looks good

2024-07-12 10:24

I like it

2024-07-12 11:07

Still not sure why Perfecto is on the bench here. Did he want out?

2024-07-12 11:34

he clearly doesn't want to play with noobs

2024-07-12 15:52

he is the noob lol

2024-07-13 15:47

from what i heard he is a very devoted player, and he is clearly better than anyone in this roster, so no

2024-07-14 20:19

he is not better than ax1le or heavygod he is only better than interz (cs2) and boombl4 unnecessary to comment on icy because he's an awper and when perfecto tried to awp he played like a lvl 3 faceit player

2024-07-15 13:21

honestly, about his awp, i didn't see it being any worse than ropz's awp for example, there was nothing special i guess, but he was still delivering when it was needed. ax1le is long gone, he was much better in the past of course. Now - not relevant.

2024-07-16 15:41

"he was still delivering when it was needed" "ax1le is long gone, now - not relevant" what is your next joke, darth plagueis?

2024-07-16 18:19

heavygod vs boombla let's freaking goooooooo

2024-07-12 15:51

HeavyBoom

2024-07-15 06:15

Hard to see any success with this roster but hopefully they can surprise everyone

2024-07-12 19:56

Disband soon

2024-07-13 00:30

this lineup look terrible unfortunately, if they kept perfecto instead of interz who was even too bad for TSM, then this roster could have looked a lot better. Only upside is that you now have a completely selfless player I guess, but thats about it. Very disappointing from Cloud9 again.

2024-07-13 13:39

Perfecto fell off, man. He’s pretty average now Interz knows the game very well and can easily perform on the same level. They don’t need him to be a star. Just make some plays when it counts

2024-07-16 08:02

Sounds like top 1 tier 2 team.

2024-07-13 15:51

How interz keeps getting paychecks now is wild. He’s so washed. Orgs wishing on the gambit online days

2024-07-14 05:39

Tbf c9 is different, they prob know him and get along well + it's a cheap pickup, if he is too dogshit he is prob the first to be cut so i'm not too mad

2024-07-15 01:24