groove: "My main goal was playoffs; we did the minimum"

Cloud9's coach is "okay" with the Major result, but the team's hopes were much higher ahead of 2025, when ranking becomes king.

Cloud9 were eliminated from the Perfect World Shanghai Major Opening stage with a 1-3 record on Wednesday, bringing an end to a disappointing second half to the season.

The Russian side had struggled online following the summer additions of Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov, Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko and Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin. It was a result of the new roster coming from "different schools," according to Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov, and it meant that Cloud9 left it all on the table for the Major cycle.

Things finally started clicking at the RMR, with Cloud9 fending off several underdogs on the way to qualification, but their Major campaign ended abruptly after they suffered close losses to Liquid, paiN and Complexity in the first stage.

For a team still coming to grips with the new lineup, qualifying for the Major was an achievement in itself, admitted the coach, groove.

"We did the minimum, qualification for the Major," he told HLTV following Cloud9's elimination. "If we compare it to qualification from our region, I guess it's a really good result in terms of Astralis, Eternal Fire, other good teams didn't qualify for this Major. When we have only 14 slots, it makes sense. I'm not happy, but I'm okay about this result."

Date	Matches
Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Opening Stage
30/11/2024	Liquid Finished 13:10 Cloud9	Match
30/11/2024	fnatic Finished 5:13 Cloud9	Match
01/12/2024	paiN Finished 13:11 Cloud9	Match
02/12/2024	Cloud9 Finished 0:2 Complexity	Match

Cloud9's hopes for the Major itself were still much higher than this. It was crucial to have a good result to end the year before invites to big LANs become all about the Valve ranking from 2025. There, Cloud9 sit in 35th place in the world following the end of their Major campaign.

"I don't think it will be enough to have invites," groove conceded. "That's why our main goal was to go to playoffs, it would have meant we'd have invites to some LAN tournaments. I'm not sure about next year, we'll see, but definitely we'll have to play qualifiers."

Qualifiers will come few and far between next year, with most tournaments featuring invite-only structures. The earliest tournament between the three biggest tournament organizers, ESL, BLAST, and PGL, with qualifying spots that haven't already been determined won't come before March with BLAST Open Lisbon.

That means Cloud9 have another four months ahead of them before they get a chance to work their way back up to tier one and will likely have to rely on online play — a daunting prospect for a team that seemed to come alive only when they finally got back on LAN at the RMR.